September 24, 2025 • 28 mins
In today's episode of the Global Treasures Podcast, Abigail interviews Wendy Holden, who was a journalist for eighteen years, including a decade at the Daily Telegraph. She is the author and coauthor of more than thirty books, among them several internationally acclaimed wartime biographies, including Born Survivors.goo Join us as we discuss her experience visiting Auschwitz Birkenau, a UNESCO world heritage site and how the resilience of the human spirit allows us to persevere in the most challenging of circumstances.
You can find her books here:
https://www.instagram.com/wendyholdenbestsellingauthor/
Some links to help make planning your trip to Auschwitz easier:
Trip.com - Auschwitz Birkenau Tickets and More
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Episode Transcript
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Abigail (00:00):
Imagine a place that tells a story spanning centuries.
Where culture and nature intertwine tocreate something truly extraordinary.
That's the beauty of UNESCOWorld Heritage Sites.
I'm Abigail, and this is GlobalTreasures, the podcast that covers
(00:20):
the history, travel tips andlegends surrounding a different
World Heritage site each episode.
And I am excited because in today'sepisode, I'll be interviewing Wendy
Holden, who was a journalist for 18 years,including a decade at The Daily Telegraph.
She's the author and co-author ofmore than 30 books, among them,
(00:44):
several internationally acclaimedwartime biographies, including Born
Survivors, as well as the New YorkTimes bestseller, A Lotus Grows in the
Mud with Goldie Hawn and Lady Blue Eyeswith Frank Sinatra's widow Barbara.
She lives in Suffolk, England withher husband and two dogs, and divides
(01:07):
her time between the UK and the US.
Wendy, thank you so much for joiningme and being my first interview.
Wendy (01:14):
Thank you very much for inviting me, Abigail.
I'm honored.
Abigail (01:18):
So as we were discussing before we got started today, I really wanted
to have you on so we could talk aboutyour books because I was just incredibly
impressed by your fantastic storytelling.
You really bring the characters to life.
And a few of your books takeplace in Auschwitz Birkenau Nazi
(01:38):
Concentration and Extermination Camp,which is located in Southern Poland.
I'll just add for anyone who wants tolearn more about the history of this
site specifically, you can go backand listen to season two, episode
seven of the podcast, as Auschwitzis a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
(01:59):
So of course, let's start bytalking about Born Survivors and
The Teacher of Auschwitz, two ofyour books that truly moved me.
I wanted to learn more about whatinspired you to write them and why these
stories specifically resonated with you.
Wendy (02:16):
Thank you.
Yes.
Well, my background is that myfather was much older than all
the fathers of my friends, and hehad fought the Japanese in Burma.
And my mother had lived in London duringthe the war, during the London Blitz
and her fiance before she was engagedand my father had been killed, aged
18, shot dead parachuting into Holland.
(02:37):
So I grew up with this incredibleawareness of war, shall we say,
and a respect for it, a respect forveterans, and an understanding that
it can have great tragedies, butit can also lead to great things.
For example, if my mother's fiancehadn't been killed, she wouldn't have
married my father, I might not be here.
So then I became a journalist and alsoultimately a war correspondent, and spent
(02:59):
many years in the Middle East coveringespecially the the first Gulf War.
And I got a little bitof PTSD from it myself.
But nevertheless, I've been drawn backtime and again to war stories because I
feel a great and deep affinity with them.
And I also feel particularly withWorld War II, which is within living
memory, and my father and mother arelong gone now, but I can certainly
(03:23):
remember them talking about it, thatthis is something that we really need
to keep at the forefront of our mindsand learn the lessons of history.
With born survivors, that was just arandom, I read something online late at
night about, uh, a woman who died in Aus,sorry, in, uh, Canada, in her eighties.
And she had been in Auschwitzand she had given birth there.
(03:44):
She was pregnant when she arrived andher baby was taken away and murdered.
And it occurred to me that I'd neverread anything before about babies
born who survived the Holocaust.
Uh, and I started to do some researchand I came across these incredible
stories of three young motherswho hid their pregnancies from the
Nazis and gave birth in the camps.
And all three mothers and all three babiessurvived despite the fact that they were
(04:09):
in Auschwitz, they were in slave labor,and by full term, they weighed less
than 70 pounds and their babies wereless than three pounds and very sickly.
So it's an amazing story.
The babies are also alive all80 in April, and we still travel
the world together, talking aboutand bearing witness to history.
Abigail (04:29):
That is so tragic and beautiful and amazing all at the same time.
And I think that's interestingbecause part of what I carried
with me after finishing Teacher ofAuschwitz specifically was, you know,
we always hear the stories of peoplelike Oscar Schindler, who of course
were pivotal in saving lives, butsometimes with the seemingly smaller
(04:54):
acts of kindness, you know, in takingpeople out of their grief and sorrow,
you're saving them emotionally.
Right?
And in that moment, that's everything,even if you can't save them physically.
Wendy (05:07):
Yes, absolutely.
And what I learned both as a warcorrespondent and from my parents, and
certainly from my writing about WorldWar II, is that in the darkest times,
the beacons of light shine ever brighter.
And that's the beauty of people likeFreddie Hirsch, the teacher of Auschwitz.
It's the beauty of these threeyoung mothers who, all of them,
(05:29):
including Freddie Hirsch, wereunremarkable people before the war.
They didn't have anythingspecial about them, so it seemed.
They would've led relativelynormal lives and probably lived and
died unnoticed by the world, butbecause of what happened to them.
They were, they became something else.
They, they discovered, strengthenthemselves that they never knew, and
(05:53):
they discovered an incredible resilience.
And, and the power of the humanspirit should never be underestimated
because those three mothers weredetermined to stay alive for the
sake of their unborn children.
And Freddie Hirsch was determinedto do everything he could within
his power for as long as he could tosave as many children as he could.
Those stories, those ordinary peopleare the people who inspired me.
Abigail (06:17):
They define the word tenacity for me.
Yes.
Wendy (06:21):
Absolutely.
And, and, and, and courage.
Tremendous courage to continueto, especially Freddie Hirsch who
refused to be a bystander to hate.
Who was in Auschwitz in places where,and other places where to be, keep,
stay alive was to keep your head down.
And not draw attention to yourselfor catch the eye of a an SS guard.
(06:45):
But instead of doing that, even thoughhe was in his early twenties and in
double jeopardy because he was German,Jewish and gay, he went and stood in
front of SS officers almost daily andstared them in the eye and demanded
privileges for the sake of the children.
And he could have been shot or beaten todeath any single moment, and he continued
(07:08):
to risk his life for the sake of others,and that is so inspirational and, and so
courageous that it's unbelievable whenyou look at his background and learn
about him, as you will in the book.
There was nothing that indicatedthat, you know, until it happened.
Abigail (07:23):
So along those lines, did you learn any details that surprised you?
I mean, aside from just these,again, being lesser known
stories from the Holocaust.
Wendy (07:34):
Yes, well, the other thing that surprised me was the
kindness of strangers, whichyou touched on earlier, Abigail.
And it is those small acts of kindness.
In Born Survivors,
after they had left Auschwitz and hadbeen taken to slave labor in Germany,
they were put on a 17 day train of deathsouth to Mauthausen concentration camp.
And in that town, which wasa, is a beautiful town on the
(07:57):
banks of the river Danube.
With postcard houses, I mean, they justlooked like something outta postcards
with window boxes, brimming with flowers.
The ordinary people every day sawtrains emptied at their station, and
prisoners marched up through the town.
They didn't know ifthere were men or women.
They were so emaciated orwearing uniforms, filthy
(08:20):
covered in lice, very unwell.
And they never saw anybody come backdown from the camp and they heard
shooting and they heard screamsand they heard everything else.
There was one woman who really surprisedme and stuck in my mind, and she lived
and worked opposite the station and sawthis happening every day, and she decided
to make a little hole in her pocket andwalk up through the town the path that she
(08:44):
knew every day the prisoners would take.
And out of the little hole in herpocket, she dropped a morsel of
bread, a needle and thread, a littlepiece of paper and, and a pen maybe.
Or note to say, hold on,the war will be over soon.
Some small sign of compassion to showthat somebody still cared to show that
(09:06):
somebody realized this was inhumane,what was happening, and she got caught.
And even though she was a good, uh,Christian House, frow a, a German,
uh, Austrian housewife rather withwith husband and children, she
was sent to a concentration campfor, for helping those people.
The beauty of that story is thatshe almost died there of typhus, but
(09:26):
she was saved by a Jewish doctor.
So she had tried to do somethingfor the Jews and then she'd
been saved by a Jewish doctor.
So her story was told becauseof what happened to her.
But there must have been many,many people along the way who
did equal acts of kindness.
And of course they were ha werethey needed to be remain secret.
And they always remain secret.
(09:48):
And it is because of thosesmall acts of kindness.
Throughout all these stories thatthese people either didn't give up
the, the, the will to live completely,or it helped them in some small way.
A glass of milk for the, apregnant woman, that kind of thing.
Just extraordinary little acts ofkindness that would mean nothing
now in everyday life, but thenmeant absolutely everything to them.
Abigail (10:13):
Completely true.
Yes.
So.
I'm curious in terms of doingresearch, finding out all of this
information, what sources did you use?
What was the research process like?
Like I know for me, I'llsometimes go to a library.
I don't just search the internet,but do you reach out to museums?
(10:33):
Did you go to Auschwitz to do research?
Wendy (10:36):
Yes.
I go to every single place that I'mwriting about personally and walk in
the footsteps of my, my characters.
That's really important to me.
Even to the point that when the,the, the, the all, all, all three
mothers and, and Freddie Hirsch in,in, in two separate stories, they
all arrived at, uh, Theresienstadtin the ghetto, in Czechoslovakia.
(10:57):
Uh, and when they, they arrived,they, they had to walk at three
miles or two and a half milesfrom the station to the ghetto.
And I, I did that walk so I couldliterally walk in their footsteps
and look around because thelandscape hasn't changed very much.
I also went to every single concentrationcamp that I wrote about and have
written about to see personally whatwas left and get a, get a feel for it.
(11:19):
And I, uh, went to all their gravesand, and, and to the, the, the
childhood homes of all of them.
So that I could actually sort of almostsoak up who they were, uh, because that's
when your imagination really takes over.
Freddie Hirsch was born in AachenGermany surrounded by beautiful wooded
hills, and he loved to, he loved nature.
(11:42):
It was a great solace for him during thewar and also during his unhappy childhood.
So to walk in those same woods and tosee that the lakes that he he swam in
is an enormous bonus for an a writer andhistorian because if you really want to
get under the skin of that character foryourself, and also most importantly, for
the reader to be able to sense that tosmell the pine trees, uh, to, to have a
(12:07):
sense of, of, of the, the breeze rustlingthe leaves is, is absolutely vital so
that when you then come back to your,your office or your garrett or wherever it
is that you work, you can remem rememberthat and, and describe it in some way.
Abigail (12:22):
And I think that's especially important for places like concentration
camps, where I would guess most peoplehave not visited, unfortunately.
And sometimes I think it's a, becausepeople have this strange idea that
almost all of the concentrationcamps were in Germany and Poland.
I remember when I originally releasedthe Auschwitz episode of my podcast,
(12:46):
people were writing me left and rightand they're like, what do you mean?
They're not all in Germany?
And I was like, oh, oh no.
They were spread out.
Like there were over, I think1100 concentration camps at least.
So, you know, I think justeducating people on the smaller
details like that is important.
But,
Wendy (13:06):
and to go and stand on that plane, I mean, all three mothers and
Freddie Hirsch and the children werein Auschwitz two Birkenau, which is.
If people see pictures of Auschwitz,they see the, the gates Arbeit
Macht Frei, and they see those brickbuildings, the former Prussian barracks.
But when you go to Auschwitz,Birkenau, which is a mile and a half
(13:27):
away, it is just a windswept planewith, with fringed, with birch trees.
Birkenau means bir birch trees, andit is, it is a bleak, relentless place
where there's no respite from weather.
And when I read or, or spoke to survivors.
Who told me, you know, uh, how, what ithad been like to arrive there terrified,
(13:49):
shivering with fear, nevermind cold inthe dead of night with, with searchlights,
you know, in your eyes and, and dogsbarking and, and Germans shouting at you.
And then to be taken and, and haveall your clothing taken off you.
These are people who are never evenundressed in front of their husbands.
And they were standing there naked, havingtheir hair shaved off their bodies to the
(14:11):
point that they didn't even recognize eachother, and then foled outside and standing
barefoot in cold, wet clay with thatbiting wind being inspected by the likes
of Joseph Mengele, the angel of death.
You just, you can't imagine it.
I mean, little detailslike one of the mother's.
Had still didn't want to give upher wedding ring, so she hung onto
(14:34):
it and she put it in her mouth.
And then when they were comingalong the ranks of the lines of
naked women standing in the clay,she realized that this was too much
of a risk to have it in her mouth.
So she put it into the clay and shegrounded into the clay because she'd
rather that the earth swallowedit than that, that a Nazi took it.
(14:54):
It's those little details that.
Really bring a story to life and, andwe can imagine ourselves doing that.
We can imagine ourselves in thatposition and, and think, yes, great.
You know, you didn't hand it overto somebody to who was then going
to sell it or, or send it back hometo Germany or, or, or steal it.
You, you were able to havethat moment of control.
Abigail (15:17):
Yeah.
I think these stories are such anexcellent case study on why genocide
in general and the holocaust.
Is that evidence of inhumane, the cruel,the methodical efforts to deny human
dignity, like you were just saying,and promote system systemic murder.
And you know, in preparation for today, Iwas just thinking about, you know, there's
(15:43):
such significance to preserving the memoryof these terrible events, you said it
before, for those future generations.
I worry that the further we get awayfrom it, especially with veterans of
the Second World War passing, peoplemight forget the horrors and almost
(16:03):
become detached to the fact that thesesituations were people's reality.
They weren't fiction andprejudice and discrimination.
They, they still happen today.
And I'm curious, what do you feel isthe role of auschwitz and the lessons
people can take away from visiting thesite because it sounds like it feels
(16:27):
like hollowed ground when you visit.
Wendy (16:29):
It really does.
I mean, it it, it bearssilent witness to history.
It bears silent wi witnessto genocide, and it is so
important for historians like me.
These places are preserved andthat the archives are preserved.
I work very closely with the archivistsaround the world and spend days
and days and days in the bowels ofmuseums and going through archive
(16:51):
materials sometimes with translators.
Interpreters sitting next to me,and it's so important to have
those little artifacts to have.
Those little stories towatch the videos, the video
testimonies that are vital to me.
All three mothers had died beforeI came to right born survivors
one just six months prior at 96.
(17:11):
But they all gave videotestimonies to the Sher Foundation.
So I was able to see them talking,crying, laughing their gestures,
the way their eyes twinkled.
It was, that was vitally important.
And of course, you're right, the veteransare, are, are leaving us in their drove.
So are the, the, the Holocaust survivors.
And you know, the three babies, themiracle babies from Born Survivors.
(17:32):
In a few years time, they may well be thelast living survivors of the Holocaust.
And we talk a lot in schools.
I go to schools.
I think it's very important to teach thenext generation about the Holocaust and to
keep telling them about it and to try andteach them to have respect for difference.
But when I go physically with one ofthe other, one of the babies, one of the
(17:53):
survivors, or sometimes all three of them.
They are stunned into silence.
You can hear a pin drop because standingthere in front of them is somebody in
the living flesh that within livingmemory, Hitler intended to murder.
And that's so enormously powerful.
And what I would say is that themuseums are doing great work in
continuing to preserve those memories.
(18:15):
And I dunno if you're aware, butthey've done a lot of hologram
interviews with survivors.
The survivors that are still around.
They have, uh, sat them in a chair andfilmed them and had them asked maybe a
hundred questions, different questions,the most common questions they're asked,
and they have filmed them answering it.
And then when people come throughthe museums, even long after those
(18:37):
survivors are dead, the hologram issitting there and can answer questions.
So it's, it's the next best thingto having them there in real life.
And it is so important for the worldtoday because antisemitism and hatred.
Resentment and jealousy and all thehorrible human traits that unfortunately
rear their heads every now and again inin the world are, are rife at the moment.
(19:00):
And it's really, really importantfor the next generation especially.
They're the, they're the hope,they're the, they're the people.
We have to pin our hopes on thatthey are going to have a better
understanding and more compassionbecause of the work that people like
me and, and the museums are doing.
Abigail (19:18):
I'm so grateful for that work because I know in school, I
think back and it baffles me howlittle I learned about the Holocaust.
I think I had a 45 minute lessonon it, and the majority was not
really even on the Holocaust.
It focused on Adolf Hitler and I knowit's not meant to honor him, but it
(19:43):
almost makes it feel like it makeshim more important than the survivors.
That's something that sits with me.
Wendy (19:51):
Yes, absolutely.
And, and I mean, think, I think Holocausteducation has come a very long way.
Now, the United States HolocaustMemorial Museum has some wonderful,
wonderful programs, and I speak atthe, the Baur Conference, which is a,
a conference for the best Holocaustteachers in America, and they're all
invited to come to the museum for a week.
They get to meet survivors, they get tomeet authors and, and historians like me,
(20:14):
and they get to see archives and behindthe scenes so that they can go back
freshly enthused and talk to children.
And those sort of opportunitiesnever used to be around.
Uh, it was basically a few booksand, and also Born Survivors has
been adopted on the curriculum in, inseveral countries as a teaching aid
because it's impossible for children toidentify with 6 million Dead, but they
(20:36):
can identify with three young mothers.
Similarly with Freddie Hirsch, thisincredible young man who, who did
so much and tried so hard to saveso many children, uh, and stood
up every day to the SS to, to getpermission to build this children's
block in the middle of Auschwitz.
That became a little heaven in hell wherehe was able to put on little shows he
(20:58):
put on Snow White and The Seven Dwarves.
He had the walls painted with SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarves, and
even the SS officers would drift inhaving just sent tens of thousands
to their death in the gas chambers.
They would drift in, in the shadowof the chimney stacks and smokestacks
and, uh, and, and throw sweets tothese children because even they
(21:19):
recognized how exceptional this islittle Haven was in the middle of
such a dark and, and terrifying place.
I mean, what an achievement.
He, he really, he, it was terrible becausehe, after the war, he was denigrated by
communists, homophobes, and antisemites.
And he was largely forgotten for 80 years.
So it's been such a privilege forme to bring his story to light
(21:43):
and bring him back to the world.
And both of those books now havebeen published in 26 countries and
translated into multiple languages, andit's so gratifying to to, to have my
work go out there and hopefully makea difference in all those countries.
Abigail (21:59):
Congratulations and thank you for immortalizing him.
I am curious, are you planning towrite another book that takes place
in a concentration camp or maybe anyother UNESCO World Heritage site?
Wendy (22:13):
Well, I'm very interested actually in the Jews that fled to China because,
uh, when Hitler rose to power in theNazis rose to power in Germany, uh, and
started invading countries left, rightand center, and the Jews were fleeing.
Most countries closed their doors.
They were terrified of amassive influx of refugees.
And there were very, very few countriesthat accepted, uh, any if at all.
(22:36):
And if so, just very small numbers.
And they had to find fundsand sponsorship and so on.
So it was very difficult for people,but China was the exception and
China welcomed them with open arms.
They didn't even need a visa.
And their, I think it was because thattheir religion was, their faith and
their religion and their traditions wereactually very similar to Jewish tradition.
(22:58):
Great respect for elders,uh, close communities.
And they, they didn't reallyget it, they didn't really
understand that antisemitism.
And so they, and they'd also had avery long history with Jews because a
lot of Jews from the Middle East hadfled to China in the previous century.
So, so a lot of them went therein the hope of escaping, you
know, terrible conditions.
And unfortunately.
(23:19):
Not long after they, they got there,the Japanese invaded and they ended
up living in, in quite difficultconditions anyway, not as difficult
as they would've been had they beenin a concentration camp in Europe.
But nevertheless, it wasn't, youknow, it wasn't all milk and honey.
So I'm interested in that story becauseI think it's been largely untold.
So it's not exactly another UNESCOworld site or a concentration count,
(23:41):
but it certainly keeps me in that,in that, in that vein, in that story.
And then once again, the stories ofincredibly kind people who facilitated
them to get there because it's nosmall thing in, in 1939 to 44 say,
to, to, to get from, from Germany orCzechoslovakia or Poland to, to Shanghai.
(24:06):
I mean, that wasn't, that wasn't astraightforward, couldn't jump on
a plane, you know, it was a, a, along boat ride and, and costly and
dangerous to even get to a port.
So.
That's a whole, that's a whole journeyin itself that I'm quite interested in.
Abigail (24:21):
I would love to read a book about that.
I think the aftermath of all ofthis is something we also don't
talk a whole lot about, and maybemy frame of reference is different.
Being American, there was no actualwar physically within the country,
but there was a lot of fallout.
It took years for countriesto rebuild and things to.
(24:46):
Relative normalcy, whatever that means,you know, it wasn't just the war ended
and Oh, everything went back to normal.
Wendy (24:54):
No, absolutely.
And, and I was very glad to beable to include what happened
to the mothers after the war.
Uh, because obviously, uh, to comehome from all of that with your tiny,
tiny, sickly baby, and to discoverthat pretty much every member of
your family has been murdered.
And you go to your apartment or your homeand somebody's living in it and won't let
(25:16):
you in, and you can see your belongings,uh, through the crack in the door, and
you can see women walking down the streetin your clothing and you have nothing and
a tiny baby and no money and no husbandand, and nobody to help you really.
I mean, at that point, many Holocaustsurvivors, even though they had survived
(25:37):
the most terrible experiences during thewar, many of them did kill themselves.
They just couldn't facecontinuing on with the struggle.
They couldn't face any further agony andpain, but these mothers didn't, and they,
not only didn't they, they kept going.
They then raised these three children tobecome beautiful life enhancing souls.
(25:58):
Each of them has done incrediblyvaluable work in their lives medically.
One's a scientist, one's a doctor.
One works in Holocaust education,and they've all gone on to have
children and grandchildren.
So they really have made theirmark in, in, in the, in memory
of, of, of the, those they lost.
Abigail (26:17):
That's incredible.
The resiliency.
Wendy (26:20):
Yes.
Abigail (26:21):
So where can people find you in your books?
Wendy (26:23):
Well, I have a website, wendy holden.com, and all my books are there.
There is another Wendy Holden,who's a writer, but that's not me.
So please go to wendy holden.comand there's a, there's a, there's
a wealth of books there, andyou will find lots of different
books, some celebrity biographiesand so on, peppered in between.
They're what my, I call myantidote books because you can't
(26:44):
stay in the Holocaust forever.
And in fact, my next book is the firstever authorized biography of Audrey
Hepburn working with her son, Sean.
That's coming out worldwide in April,and that's been an absolute delight.
But again, the reason I waschosen for it was because Audrey's
life began and ended with war.
And so the, the war thread continues,and you'll see if you look at my
(27:05):
books that I, I, no matter how I goaway from war for a, a year or more,
I always end up coming back to it.
It may even be part of a healing process.
Somebody suggested that Recently I spoketo a, a psychotherapist and a podcast.
She said, maybe this is your way ofhealing or, or, or balancing out, you
know, your own parents' experiencesand your own by giving back and writing
(27:29):
about other people's experiences.
I don't know if, if, if I thinkthat deeply about it, but whatever.
Whatever the reason, I definitelyfeel at home in World War I.
Abigail (27:40):
Well, as a social worker, I can say that sometimes our
subconscious probably plays abigger role than we give credit to.
But I'll be sure to post links toyour books and your website so people
can find them in the show notes.
And I'll just say, thishas been fantastic.
Thank you so much for being here today.
I know I am looking forward to readingmore of your works in the future.
Wendy (28:02):
Thank you so much for having me, and I'm really proud
to have been the first intervieweeand I, I hope you do more.
You're a natural interviewer.
It works really well.
Abigail (28:10):
Thank you so much, and thank you for listening to
the Global Treasures podcast.
Please subscribe on your favoriteplatform to hear the next episode,
where we'll dive into yet anotherUNESCO World Heritage Site.
Until then, keep exploring, keep wonderingand keep treasuring the remarkable
diversity of our world's Heritage.
Imagine a place that tells a story spanning centuries.
Where culture and nature intertwine tocreate something truly extraordinary.
That's the beauty of UNESCOWorld Heritage Sites.
I'm Abigail, and this is GlobalTreasures, the podcast that covers
(00:20):
the history, travel tips andlegends surrounding a different
World Heritage site each episode.
And I am excited because in today'sepisode, I'll be interviewing Wendy
Holden, who was a journalist for 18 years,including a decade at The Daily Telegraph.
She's the author and co-author ofmore than 30 books, among them,
(00:44):
several internationally acclaimedwartime biographies, including Born
Survivors, as well as the New YorkTimes bestseller, A Lotus Grows in the
Mud with Goldie Hawn and Lady Blue Eyeswith Frank Sinatra's widow Barbara.
She lives in Suffolk, England withher husband and two dogs, and divides
(01:07):
her time between the UK and the US.
Wendy, thank you so much for joiningme and being my first interview.
Wendy (01:14):
Thank you very much for inviting me, Abigail.
I'm honored.
Abigail (01:18):
So as we were discussing before we got started today, I really wanted
to have you on so we could talk aboutyour books because I was just incredibly
impressed by your fantastic storytelling.
You really bring the characters to life.
And a few of your books takeplace in Auschwitz Birkenau Nazi
(01:38):
Concentration and Extermination Camp,which is located in Southern Poland.
I'll just add for anyone who wants tolearn more about the history of this
site specifically, you can go backand listen to season two, episode
seven of the podcast, as Auschwitzis a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
(01:59):
So of course, let's start bytalking about Born Survivors and
The Teacher of Auschwitz, two ofyour books that truly moved me.
I wanted to learn more about whatinspired you to write them and why these
stories specifically resonated with you.
Wendy (02:16):
Thank you.
Yes.
Well, my background is that myfather was much older than all
the fathers of my friends, and hehad fought the Japanese in Burma.
And my mother had lived in London duringthe the war, during the London Blitz
and her fiance before she was engagedand my father had been killed, aged
18, shot dead parachuting into Holland.
(02:37):
So I grew up with this incredibleawareness of war, shall we say,
and a respect for it, a respect forveterans, and an understanding that
it can have great tragedies, butit can also lead to great things.
For example, if my mother's fiancehadn't been killed, she wouldn't have
married my father, I might not be here.
So then I became a journalist and alsoultimately a war correspondent, and spent
(02:59):
many years in the Middle East coveringespecially the the first Gulf War.
And I got a little bitof PTSD from it myself.
But nevertheless, I've been drawn backtime and again to war stories because I
feel a great and deep affinity with them.
And I also feel particularly withWorld War II, which is within living
memory, and my father and mother arelong gone now, but I can certainly
(03:23):
remember them talking about it, thatthis is something that we really need
to keep at the forefront of our mindsand learn the lessons of history.
With born survivors, that was just arandom, I read something online late at
night about, uh, a woman who died in Aus,sorry, in, uh, Canada, in her eighties.
And she had been in Auschwitzand she had given birth there.
(03:44):
She was pregnant when she arrived andher baby was taken away and murdered.
And it occurred to me that I'd neverread anything before about babies
born who survived the Holocaust.
Uh, and I started to do some researchand I came across these incredible
stories of three young motherswho hid their pregnancies from the
Nazis and gave birth in the camps.
And all three mothers and all three babiessurvived despite the fact that they were
(04:09):
in Auschwitz, they were in slave labor,and by full term, they weighed less
than 70 pounds and their babies wereless than three pounds and very sickly.
So it's an amazing story.
The babies are also alive all80 in April, and we still travel
the world together, talking aboutand bearing witness to history.
Abigail (04:29):
That is so tragic and beautiful and amazing all at the same time.
And I think that's interestingbecause part of what I carried
with me after finishing Teacher ofAuschwitz specifically was, you know,
we always hear the stories of peoplelike Oscar Schindler, who of course
were pivotal in saving lives, butsometimes with the seemingly smaller
(04:54):
acts of kindness, you know, in takingpeople out of their grief and sorrow,
you're saving them emotionally.
Right?
And in that moment, that's everything,even if you can't save them physically.
Wendy (05:07):
Yes, absolutely.
And what I learned both as a warcorrespondent and from my parents, and
certainly from my writing about WorldWar II, is that in the darkest times,
the beacons of light shine ever brighter.
And that's the beauty of people likeFreddie Hirsch, the teacher of Auschwitz.
It's the beauty of these threeyoung mothers who, all of them,
(05:29):
including Freddie Hirsch, wereunremarkable people before the war.
They didn't have anythingspecial about them, so it seemed.
They would've led relativelynormal lives and probably lived and
died unnoticed by the world, butbecause of what happened to them.
They were, they became something else.
They, they discovered, strengthenthemselves that they never knew, and
(05:53):
they discovered an incredible resilience.
And, and the power of the humanspirit should never be underestimated
because those three mothers weredetermined to stay alive for the
sake of their unborn children.
And Freddie Hirsch was determinedto do everything he could within
his power for as long as he could tosave as many children as he could.
Those stories, those ordinary peopleare the people who inspired me.
Abigail (06:17):
They define the word tenacity for me.
Yes.
Wendy (06:21):
Absolutely.
And, and, and, and courage.
Tremendous courage to continueto, especially Freddie Hirsch who
refused to be a bystander to hate.
Who was in Auschwitz in places where,and other places where to be, keep,
stay alive was to keep your head down.
And not draw attention to yourselfor catch the eye of a an SS guard.
(06:45):
But instead of doing that, even thoughhe was in his early twenties and in
double jeopardy because he was German,Jewish and gay, he went and stood in
front of SS officers almost daily andstared them in the eye and demanded
privileges for the sake of the children.
And he could have been shot or beaten todeath any single moment, and he continued
(07:08):
to risk his life for the sake of others,and that is so inspirational and, and so
courageous that it's unbelievable whenyou look at his background and learn
about him, as you will in the book.
There was nothing that indicatedthat, you know, until it happened.
Abigail (07:23):
So along those lines, did you learn any details that surprised you?
I mean, aside from just these,again, being lesser known
stories from the Holocaust.
Wendy (07:34):
Yes, well, the other thing that surprised me was the
kindness of strangers, whichyou touched on earlier, Abigail.
And it is those small acts of kindness.
In Born Survivors,
after they had left Auschwitz and hadbeen taken to slave labor in Germany,
they were put on a 17 day train of deathsouth to Mauthausen concentration camp.
And in that town, which wasa, is a beautiful town on the
(07:57):
banks of the river Danube.
With postcard houses, I mean, they justlooked like something outta postcards
with window boxes, brimming with flowers.
The ordinary people every day sawtrains emptied at their station, and
prisoners marched up through the town.
They didn't know ifthere were men or women.
They were so emaciated orwearing uniforms, filthy
(08:20):
covered in lice, very unwell.
And they never saw anybody come backdown from the camp and they heard
shooting and they heard screamsand they heard everything else.
There was one woman who really surprisedme and stuck in my mind, and she lived
and worked opposite the station and sawthis happening every day, and she decided
to make a little hole in her pocket andwalk up through the town the path that she
(08:44):
knew every day the prisoners would take.
And out of the little hole in herpocket, she dropped a morsel of
bread, a needle and thread, a littlepiece of paper and, and a pen maybe.
Or note to say, hold on,the war will be over soon.
Some small sign of compassion to showthat somebody still cared to show that
(09:06):
somebody realized this was inhumane,what was happening, and she got caught.
And even though she was a good, uh,Christian House, frow a, a German,
uh, Austrian housewife rather withwith husband and children, she
was sent to a concentration campfor, for helping those people.
The beauty of that story is thatshe almost died there of typhus, but
(09:26):
she was saved by a Jewish doctor.
So she had tried to do somethingfor the Jews and then she'd
been saved by a Jewish doctor.
So her story was told becauseof what happened to her.
But there must have been many,many people along the way who
did equal acts of kindness.
And of course they were ha werethey needed to be remain secret.
And they always remain secret.
(09:48):
And it is because of thosesmall acts of kindness.
Throughout all these stories thatthese people either didn't give up
the, the, the will to live completely,or it helped them in some small way.
A glass of milk for the, apregnant woman, that kind of thing.
Just extraordinary little acts ofkindness that would mean nothing
now in everyday life, but thenmeant absolutely everything to them.
Abigail (10:13):
Completely true.
Yes.
So.
I'm curious in terms of doingresearch, finding out all of this
information, what sources did you use?
What was the research process like?
Like I know for me, I'llsometimes go to a library.
I don't just search the internet,but do you reach out to museums?
(10:33):
Did you go to Auschwitz to do research?
Wendy (10:36):
Yes.
I go to every single place that I'mwriting about personally and walk in
the footsteps of my, my characters.
That's really important to me.
Even to the point that when the,the, the, the all, all, all three
mothers and, and Freddie Hirsch in,in, in two separate stories, they
all arrived at, uh, Theresienstadtin the ghetto, in Czechoslovakia.
(10:57):
Uh, and when they, they arrived,they, they had to walk at three
miles or two and a half milesfrom the station to the ghetto.
And I, I did that walk so I couldliterally walk in their footsteps
and look around because thelandscape hasn't changed very much.
I also went to every single concentrationcamp that I wrote about and have
written about to see personally whatwas left and get a, get a feel for it.
(11:19):
And I, uh, went to all their gravesand, and, and to the, the, the
childhood homes of all of them.
So that I could actually sort of almostsoak up who they were, uh, because that's
when your imagination really takes over.
Freddie Hirsch was born in AachenGermany surrounded by beautiful wooded
hills, and he loved to, he loved nature.
(11:42):
It was a great solace for him during thewar and also during his unhappy childhood.
So to walk in those same woods and tosee that the lakes that he he swam in
is an enormous bonus for an a writer andhistorian because if you really want to
get under the skin of that character foryourself, and also most importantly, for
the reader to be able to sense that tosmell the pine trees, uh, to, to have a
(12:07):
sense of, of, of the, the breeze rustlingthe leaves is, is absolutely vital so
that when you then come back to your,your office or your garrett or wherever it
is that you work, you can remem rememberthat and, and describe it in some way.
Abigail (12:22):
And I think that's especially important for places like concentration
camps, where I would guess most peoplehave not visited, unfortunately.
And sometimes I think it's a, becausepeople have this strange idea that
almost all of the concentrationcamps were in Germany and Poland.
I remember when I originally releasedthe Auschwitz episode of my podcast,
(12:46):
people were writing me left and rightand they're like, what do you mean?
They're not all in Germany?
And I was like, oh, oh no.
They were spread out.
Like there were over, I think1100 concentration camps at least.
So, you know, I think justeducating people on the smaller
details like that is important.
But,
Wendy (13:06):
and to go and stand on that plane, I mean, all three mothers and
Freddie Hirsch and the children werein Auschwitz two Birkenau, which is.
If people see pictures of Auschwitz,they see the, the gates Arbeit
Macht Frei, and they see those brickbuildings, the former Prussian barracks.
But when you go to Auschwitz,Birkenau, which is a mile and a half
(13:27):
away, it is just a windswept planewith, with fringed, with birch trees.
Birkenau means bir birch trees, andit is, it is a bleak, relentless place
where there's no respite from weather.
And when I read or, or spoke to survivors.
Who told me, you know, uh, how, what ithad been like to arrive there terrified,
(13:49):
shivering with fear, nevermind cold inthe dead of night with, with searchlights,
you know, in your eyes and, and dogsbarking and, and Germans shouting at you.
And then to be taken and, and haveall your clothing taken off you.
These are people who are never evenundressed in front of their husbands.
And they were standing there naked, havingtheir hair shaved off their bodies to the
(14:11):
point that they didn't even recognize eachother, and then foled outside and standing
barefoot in cold, wet clay with thatbiting wind being inspected by the likes
of Joseph Mengele, the angel of death.
You just, you can't imagine it.
I mean, little detailslike one of the mother's.
Had still didn't want to give upher wedding ring, so she hung onto
(14:34):
it and she put it in her mouth.
And then when they were comingalong the ranks of the lines of
naked women standing in the clay,she realized that this was too much
of a risk to have it in her mouth.
So she put it into the clay and shegrounded into the clay because she'd
rather that the earth swallowedit than that, that a Nazi took it.
(14:54):
It's those little details that.
Really bring a story to life and, andwe can imagine ourselves doing that.
We can imagine ourselves in thatposition and, and think, yes, great.
You know, you didn't hand it overto somebody to who was then going
to sell it or, or send it back hometo Germany or, or, or steal it.
You, you were able to havethat moment of control.
Abigail (15:17):
Yeah.
I think these stories are such anexcellent case study on why genocide
in general and the holocaust.
Is that evidence of inhumane, the cruel,the methodical efforts to deny human
dignity, like you were just saying,and promote system systemic murder.
And you know, in preparation for today, Iwas just thinking about, you know, there's
(15:43):
such significance to preserving the memoryof these terrible events, you said it
before, for those future generations.
I worry that the further we get awayfrom it, especially with veterans of
the Second World War passing, peoplemight forget the horrors and almost
(16:03):
become detached to the fact that thesesituations were people's reality.
They weren't fiction andprejudice and discrimination.
They, they still happen today.
And I'm curious, what do you feel isthe role of auschwitz and the lessons
people can take away from visiting thesite because it sounds like it feels
(16:27):
like hollowed ground when you visit.
Wendy (16:29):
It really does.
I mean, it it, it bearssilent witness to history.
It bears silent wi witnessto genocide, and it is so
important for historians like me.
These places are preserved andthat the archives are preserved.
I work very closely with the archivistsaround the world and spend days
and days and days in the bowels ofmuseums and going through archive
(16:51):
materials sometimes with translators.
Interpreters sitting next to me,and it's so important to have
those little artifacts to have.
Those little stories towatch the videos, the video
testimonies that are vital to me.
All three mothers had died beforeI came to right born survivors
one just six months prior at 96.
(17:11):
But they all gave videotestimonies to the Sher Foundation.
So I was able to see them talking,crying, laughing their gestures,
the way their eyes twinkled.
It was, that was vitally important.
And of course, you're right, the veteransare, are, are leaving us in their drove.
So are the, the, the Holocaust survivors.
And you know, the three babies, themiracle babies from Born Survivors.
(17:32):
In a few years time, they may well be thelast living survivors of the Holocaust.
And we talk a lot in schools.
I go to schools.
I think it's very important to teach thenext generation about the Holocaust and to
keep telling them about it and to try andteach them to have respect for difference.
But when I go physically with one ofthe other, one of the babies, one of the
(17:53):
survivors, or sometimes all three of them.
They are stunned into silence.
You can hear a pin drop because standingthere in front of them is somebody in
the living flesh that within livingmemory, Hitler intended to murder.
And that's so enormously powerful.
And what I would say is that themuseums are doing great work in
continuing to preserve those memories.
(18:15):
And I dunno if you're aware, butthey've done a lot of hologram
interviews with survivors.
The survivors that are still around.
They have, uh, sat them in a chair andfilmed them and had them asked maybe a
hundred questions, different questions,the most common questions they're asked,
and they have filmed them answering it.
And then when people come throughthe museums, even long after those
(18:37):
survivors are dead, the hologram issitting there and can answer questions.
So it's, it's the next best thingto having them there in real life.
And it is so important for the worldtoday because antisemitism and hatred.
Resentment and jealousy and all thehorrible human traits that unfortunately
rear their heads every now and again inin the world are, are rife at the moment.
(19:00):
And it's really, really importantfor the next generation especially.
They're the, they're the hope,they're the, they're the people.
We have to pin our hopes on thatthey are going to have a better
understanding and more compassionbecause of the work that people like
me and, and the museums are doing.
Abigail (19:18):
I'm so grateful for that work because I know in school, I
think back and it baffles me howlittle I learned about the Holocaust.
I think I had a 45 minute lessonon it, and the majority was not
really even on the Holocaust.
It focused on Adolf Hitler and I knowit's not meant to honor him, but it
(19:43):
almost makes it feel like it makeshim more important than the survivors.
That's something that sits with me.
Wendy (19:51):
Yes, absolutely.
And, and I mean, think, I think Holocausteducation has come a very long way.
Now, the United States HolocaustMemorial Museum has some wonderful,
wonderful programs, and I speak atthe, the Baur Conference, which is a,
a conference for the best Holocaustteachers in America, and they're all
invited to come to the museum for a week.
They get to meet survivors, they get tomeet authors and, and historians like me,
(20:14):
and they get to see archives and behindthe scenes so that they can go back
freshly enthused and talk to children.
And those sort of opportunitiesnever used to be around.
Uh, it was basically a few booksand, and also Born Survivors has
been adopted on the curriculum in, inseveral countries as a teaching aid
because it's impossible for children toidentify with 6 million Dead, but they
(20:36):
can identify with three young mothers.
Similarly with Freddie Hirsch, thisincredible young man who, who did
so much and tried so hard to saveso many children, uh, and stood
up every day to the SS to, to getpermission to build this children's
block in the middle of Auschwitz.
That became a little heaven in hell wherehe was able to put on little shows he
(20:58):
put on Snow White and The Seven Dwarves.
He had the walls painted with SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarves, and
even the SS officers would drift inhaving just sent tens of thousands
to their death in the gas chambers.
They would drift in, in the shadowof the chimney stacks and smokestacks
and, uh, and, and throw sweets tothese children because even they
(21:19):
recognized how exceptional this islittle Haven was in the middle of
such a dark and, and terrifying place.
I mean, what an achievement.
He, he really, he, it was terrible becausehe, after the war, he was denigrated by
communists, homophobes, and antisemites.
And he was largely forgotten for 80 years.
So it's been such a privilege forme to bring his story to light
(21:43):
and bring him back to the world.
And both of those books now havebeen published in 26 countries and
translated into multiple languages, andit's so gratifying to to, to have my
work go out there and hopefully makea difference in all those countries.
Abigail (21:59):
Congratulations and thank you for immortalizing him.
I am curious, are you planning towrite another book that takes place
in a concentration camp or maybe anyother UNESCO World Heritage site?
Wendy (22:13):
Well, I'm very interested actually in the Jews that fled to China because,
uh, when Hitler rose to power in theNazis rose to power in Germany, uh, and
started invading countries left, rightand center, and the Jews were fleeing.
Most countries closed their doors.
They were terrified of amassive influx of refugees.
And there were very, very few countriesthat accepted, uh, any if at all.
(22:36):
And if so, just very small numbers.
And they had to find fundsand sponsorship and so on.
So it was very difficult for people,but China was the exception and
China welcomed them with open arms.
They didn't even need a visa.
And their, I think it was because thattheir religion was, their faith and
their religion and their traditions wereactually very similar to Jewish tradition.
(22:58):
Great respect for elders,uh, close communities.
And they, they didn't reallyget it, they didn't really
understand that antisemitism.
And so they, and they'd also had avery long history with Jews because a
lot of Jews from the Middle East hadfled to China in the previous century.
So, so a lot of them went therein the hope of escaping, you
know, terrible conditions.
And unfortunately.
(23:19):
Not long after they, they got there,the Japanese invaded and they ended
up living in, in quite difficultconditions anyway, not as difficult
as they would've been had they beenin a concentration camp in Europe.
But nevertheless, it wasn't, youknow, it wasn't all milk and honey.
So I'm interested in that story becauseI think it's been largely untold.
So it's not exactly another UNESCOworld site or a concentration count,
(23:41):
but it certainly keeps me in that,in that, in that vein, in that story.
And then once again, the stories ofincredibly kind people who facilitated
them to get there because it's nosmall thing in, in 1939 to 44 say,
to, to, to get from, from Germany orCzechoslovakia or Poland to, to Shanghai.
(24:06):
I mean, that wasn't, that wasn't astraightforward, couldn't jump on
a plane, you know, it was a, a, along boat ride and, and costly and
dangerous to even get to a port.
So.
That's a whole, that's a whole journeyin itself that I'm quite interested in.
Abigail (24:21):
I would love to read a book about that.
I think the aftermath of all ofthis is something we also don't
talk a whole lot about, and maybemy frame of reference is different.
Being American, there was no actualwar physically within the country,
but there was a lot of fallout.
It took years for countriesto rebuild and things to.
(24:46):
Relative normalcy, whatever that means,you know, it wasn't just the war ended
and Oh, everything went back to normal.
Wendy (24:54):
No, absolutely.
And, and I was very glad to beable to include what happened
to the mothers after the war.
Uh, because obviously, uh, to comehome from all of that with your tiny,
tiny, sickly baby, and to discoverthat pretty much every member of
your family has been murdered.
And you go to your apartment or your homeand somebody's living in it and won't let
(25:16):
you in, and you can see your belongings,uh, through the crack in the door, and
you can see women walking down the streetin your clothing and you have nothing and
a tiny baby and no money and no husbandand, and nobody to help you really.
I mean, at that point, many Holocaustsurvivors, even though they had survived
(25:37):
the most terrible experiences during thewar, many of them did kill themselves.
They just couldn't facecontinuing on with the struggle.
They couldn't face any further agony andpain, but these mothers didn't, and they,
not only didn't they, they kept going.
They then raised these three children tobecome beautiful life enhancing souls.
(25:58):
Each of them has done incrediblyvaluable work in their lives medically.
One's a scientist, one's a doctor.
One works in Holocaust education,and they've all gone on to have
children and grandchildren.
So they really have made theirmark in, in, in the, in memory
of, of, of the, those they lost.
Abigail (26:17):
That's incredible.
The resiliency.
Wendy (26:20):
Yes.
Abigail (26:21):
So where can people find you in your books?
Wendy (26:23):
Well, I have a website, wendy holden.com, and all my books are there.
There is another Wendy Holden,who's a writer, but that's not me.
So please go to wendy holden.comand there's a, there's a, there's
a wealth of books there, andyou will find lots of different
books, some celebrity biographiesand so on, peppered in between.
They're what my, I call myantidote books because you can't
(26:44):
stay in the Holocaust forever.
And in fact, my next book is the firstever authorized biography of Audrey
Hepburn working with her son, Sean.
That's coming out worldwide in April,and that's been an absolute delight.
But again, the reason I waschosen for it was because Audrey's
life began and ended with war.
And so the, the war thread continues,and you'll see if you look at my
(27:05):
books that I, I, no matter how I goaway from war for a, a year or more,
I always end up coming back to it.
It may even be part of a healing process.
Somebody suggested that Recently I spoketo a, a psychotherapist and a podcast.
She said, maybe this is your way ofhealing or, or, or balancing out, you
know, your own parents' experiencesand your own by giving back and writing
(27:29):
about other people's experiences.
I don't know if, if, if I thinkthat deeply about it, but whatever.
Whatever the reason, I definitelyfeel at home in World War I.
Abigail (27:40):
Well, as a social worker, I can say that sometimes our
subconscious probably plays abigger role than we give credit to.
But I'll be sure to post links toyour books and your website so people
can find them in the show notes.
And I'll just say, thishas been fantastic.
Thank you so much for being here today.
I know I am looking forward to readingmore of your works in the future.
Wendy (28:02):
Thank you so much for having me, and I'm really proud
to have been the first intervieweeand I, I hope you do more.
You're a natural interviewer.
It works really well.
Abigail (28:10):
Thank you so much, and thank you for listening to
the Global Treasures podcast.
Please subscribe on your favoriteplatform to hear the next episode,
where we'll dive into yet anotherUNESCO World Heritage Site.
Until then, keep exploring, keep wonderingand keep treasuring the remarkable
diversity of our world's Heritage.
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Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.