An Army of Normal Folks - The Happiest Man on Earth

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

For Shop Talk, we bring you Army member Anita Marin's awesome recommendation to learn from Eddie Jaku, the Holocaust survivor who called himself the happiest man on earth! Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody. It's Bill Courtney with Shop Talk. Welcome in the shop. Hi, Alex. Hey, Bill. What's going on? Another playoff game this Friday. Yeah, we won again. And we're one of eight teams in our division, still playing football in the state. And this Friday, we play a team in, oh gosh, it's five hours east of here, kind of southeast of Nashville, almost in Alabama. We've got to go all the way over there and play them,

and they're really, really good. But our kids are working on our practice. So hopefully, next time we record, I can give you an update that's positive. It's exciting. You're regardless. It is siding. I mean, it's exciting.

I think we're 11 wins and one loss and, you know, playing hard. Actually, I saw that when I looked up the score. There was some newspaper article title that said, like, Manassas on a, are you on like a 10-game winning streak or whatever it is? Manassus? Or not Manassas.

Middle college. college yeah yeah 10 or 11 game winnings or something like that i actually drove by middle college the other day and i smiled you know here's a sobering reality of all the very best teams in every state playing football every single one of them will lose their last game except one you know and so um it's a hell of a quest to uh be the one team that doesn't lose the last game of of their seniors years. Yeah, as Rki Bopi says, if you're not first or last.

That's it. All right, so Shep Talk number 79, everybody. From Army member Anita Marin, she sent a message and said, hey, have you read The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jacoo? And I think it's Jackoo. Originally, his name was like Jacoberitz, and he shortened it to Jacku.

He's a Holocaust Surve. survivor. She says, I thought I would suggest this after listening to today's shop talk on Victor Frankl's man's searching for meaning. It's amazing. Please don't miss it. Anita was also an Army member who actually recommended the Heritage Home Story. So Anita, thanks so much for being involved and engaged and giving us so many great ideas. And we invite all of you to please give us ideas for Shop Talk and Army and Normal folks. And Anita and today's Shop Talk, is proof positive that we will absolutely listen to what you're saying and bring it up. So Alex went and found an article about Eddie's life and his book,

The Happiest Man on Earth, that we'll read right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. It's okay not to be okay sometimes and be able to build strength and love within each other. Thanksgiving isn't just about food. It's a day for us to show up for one another. I'm Elliot Connie, host of the podcast Family Therapy, a series where real families come together to heal and find hope. What would be a clue

that would be like? I've gotten lots of text messages from him. This one's from a little bit better of a version of him. Because he's feeding himself well. It's always a concern. Like, are you eating well? He's actually an amazing cook. There was this one time where we had neighbors and I saved their dog, and I

ended up inviting them over for food and that was like one of my proudest moments. This is family therapy. Real families, real stories on a journey to heal together. Listen to season two of family therapy every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome fellow seekers of the dark. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me in Nocturno? Tales from the Shadows. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends and lore of Latin America.

Take a trip from ghastly encounters with evil spirits to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. You should probably can't. your lights on for Nocturnal, Tales from the Shadows. Listen to Nocturnal, Tales from the Shadows, as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur.

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself,

turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice. To the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionous History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it's Ed Helms, and welcome back to Snafu. my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Ernie Shackleton sounds like a

solid 70s basketball player. Who still wore knee pads? Yes. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Shear made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so

psyched. You're here. What was that like for you to soft launch into the show? Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today. I forgot whose podcasts we were doing. Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of Snap-Fu with Ed Helms on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman.

There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses.

Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody, welcome back to shop. That was a long shop bell right there. That was good. Okay, good. Shop talk number 79. Here we go. Guy named Eddie Jacu, who was a Holocaust survivor, wrote a book called The Happiest Man.

and Alex found an article about Eddie's life in his book. And the article comes from a Jewish publication called, I'm sorry, A-I-S-H-H-H-E-H. Yeah, I don't know either, but I don't know. I should call my buddy Scott Stone. He would know exactly what that word is, the etymology of it, how to pronounce it, what it means. But I'm just going to call it Aish. And it's appropriately titled The Happiest Man on Earth. Eddie, Jacou, survived Auschwitz and became a beloved humanitarian preaching love and forgiveness

in its adopted country of Australia. Toward the end of his 101-year lifespan, he delivered a TEDx talk, the happiest man on earth that has received 2 million views on YouTube. So after you finish this, you have something to go do. Go look it up. And he did all that after spending seven years as a prisoner in four different concentration camps, escaping twice, sneaking back in once, and surviving a forced march that killed 15,000 prisoners. Eddie showed us that hope can never fade away.

He was born Abraham Solomon Jakubowitz in Leitsbig, Germany, family of four on April 4th, 19, He had a happy childhood growing up with his parents, little sister, Joanna, and Lulu. And Lulu, the family docksian. Oh, gosh. Sorry, his sister was not named. His sister was Joanna. His dog was named Lulu. There we go.

His plane-aids called him Abby, which became Addie, and then Eddie. His engineering school education would serve him well during his lifetime, but it started off badly as he and other Jewish boys were kicked out of school in the Nazis. rose to power. Every time I read more about all of this stuff, every time I hear somebody's story, I get sickened by the whole thing. His father orchestrated a new identity form, so 13-year-old Eddie became Walter Schleaf to hide his Jewish heritage and continue his study of mechanical engineering in tutelogen, which was far south of Lipsby. Away from home, he stayed at an orphanage after classes. He graduated in Earned.

an internship at a prestigious engineering union. Eddie, or Walter, decided to risk a visit home and took a nine-hour train ride to see his parents and celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. He called it the biggest mistake of my young life. He didn't know his family had fled from the rising wave anti-Semitic violence. Only their dog Lulu remained.

He went to bed and at 5 a.m. on November 9, 1938, the daughter's house was smashed in by 10 Nazi Shult. soldiers. They beat him unmercifully, carved a swastika into his arm, and bayoneted Lulu to death. And he was taken outside and saw his neighborhood ablaze. He was forced to watch his family's 200-year-old house burned to the ground. Kristen Lott, the night of broken glass. Crystal knocked. Thank you. Say it again. Crystal knocked. Yeah, you're too all red not to know that, Bill. Come on. I don't know. It's not that. It's my, it's my southern tongue. Can't pronounce that kind of stuff. But anyway, it's spelled K-R-I-S-T-A-L-L-N-A-C-H-T, crystal knock. The Night of Broken

Glass had begun. Eddie wrote in his biography. That night, atrocities were being committed by civilized Germans over Lispig all over the country. Nearly every Jewish home and business in my city was vandalized, burned, or destroyed, as were our synagogues and our people. When the mob was done destroying property, they rounded up Jewish people, many of them young children, and threw them in the river that I used to skate on as a child. The ice was thin and the water freezing. Men and women I'd grown up with stood on the riverbank, spitting and jeering. As people struggled, shoot them, they cried.

Shoot the Jewish dogs. He was loaded onto a truck and taken to Bushwald and eventually put on a train to Auschwitz. Is it Buchanwald? Yes, Buchanwald. And eventually put on a train to Auschwitz. Over the next seven dark years, he would serve time in four different concentration camps.

You imagine growing up in a community and having gone to school and everything else with a bunch of people you think you're civilized friends and then they're parting you and bayonetting your dog and throwing you in an icy river. I mean, it's just... It is scary to think a lot of us are capable of that.

It is. It's scary to think what racism and deep political division can drive what evil it can drive humans to. Okay, it was loaded on a truck and taken to Buchanwald and eventually put on a train to Oschwitz over the next seven dark years. he served time in four concentration camps. In Auschwitz, the number 172-338, was tattooed on his arm. He learned that his parents had been victims of the Auschwitz gas chambers and crematoriums,

and he slept naked in a narrow row of 10 men when it was 8 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. He marched for an hour and a half to work, sometimes clearing debris from a bombed-out ammunition depot or jack hammering coal on a 12-hour shift. When his captors learned of his mechanical engineering background, he was made a foreman at the IG Farbrin chemical factory and was responsible for regulating air pressure to 200 machines. One of the company's chief products was a poison gas used in the Nazi gas chambers. One of the machine operators she ran into was his sister. They realized they couldn't speak or even acknowledge each other in front of their captors.

They passed each other in silence every day. He escaped once by hiding in a food drum and rolling off a delivery truck, still dressed in his prison pajamas who was freezing cold and stopped at the cabin for help. He was met by a Polish farmer and his rifle. The first five bullets missed him, but the six hit his left calf. He had to sneak back into Auschwitz, where an old French doctor used an ivory letter opener and his fingers to dig and squeeze out the bullet. They timed the surgery to coincide with the bells ringing at a nearer.

by a Catholic church to muffle his screams of pain. And what did he think of the man who shot him? Do I hate that man? No, I do not hate anyone. He was just weak and probably as scared as I was. He let his fear overtake his morals. And I know that for every cruel person in the world, there's a kind one. By early 1945, the Russian troops were advancing,

and the Nazi war effort was weakening. Auschwitz was evacuated, and the Germans destroyed their gas chambers and crematoriums, and forced the Auschwitz prisoners on a march into deeper German-occupied territory. 60,000 prisoners started this death march and 15,000 perished during the march. The surviving prisoners boarded a train to Buchanwald and Eddie was assigned to a machine shop to make gears. By now, the allied effort was making solid advances against the Nazis, and Russian artillery and British bombing runs were heard daily. The prisoners were marched away from the advancing Russians to the east, only to get closer to the advancing American army to the west. Nazi soldiers began

deserting their post. He escaped by crawling into a drainage ditch, then hid in caves, eating snails and slugs near death. He was crawling down a highway and was met by an American tank. He weighed 62 pounds. He wrote in his biography, Those beautiful American soldiers, I'll never forget. They put me in a blanket, and I woke up one week later in a German hospital. At first, I thought I was cuckoo, crazy, because yesterday I'd been in a cave

and I was in a bed with white sheets and cushions and nurses all around. Six weeks later, he was discharged and walked over the border into Belgium. He vowed never to return to Germany again. In Belgium, he spent time at a Jewish welfare society where Jewish refugees and soldiers of the Allied armies would meet for meals and fellowship. He found work as a precision engineer and soon was a factory foreman supervising 20 machinists. A local newspaper ran a story of photos of Holocaust survivors and his sister Joanna saw it.

They were reunited and lived together in Brussels until she moved to Australia. On April 201946, he married Flo Molo, a Greek Separtic Jew, raised in Belmont. It would be a 75-year marriage. They met at the town hall in Brussels while she administered food stamps to them. A year later, their son Michael was born. What a miracle to be alive and to hold my beautiful baby, my beautiful wife. If you had told me when I was being tortured and starved by the concentration camps that soon I would be so lucky, I would have never believed you.

The greatest thing you ever do is be loved by another person. Each year, Floor and I celebrate our wedding anniversary on 20 April, Hitler's birthday. We are still here. Hitler is down there. In my mind, this is really the best revenge, and it's the only wrench I'm interested in, to be the happiest man on Earth. In 1950, the young family moved to Australia to join his sister, and he took a job at a medical instrument factory in Sydney. Soon, he was in the automotive repair business and opened his own service. and opened his own service station. Next, he and Flore opened a real estate office,

reclaimed his original name, and called the business E.E. Jack U.S. Real Estate. Eddie and Flore worked there until their 90s. Slowly, Eddie began to speak about his years of brutal imprisonment. In 1972, he joined a group of 20 Holocaust survivors to create a meeting place. Ten years later, the Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and descendants was founded.

Eddie was instrumental in the founding of Sydney's Jewish Museum in 1992. He volunteered there for the past three decades, taking school groups on tours of the museum's Holocaust exhibitions, bringing the grainy, faded, black and white images to life for thousands of young students and urging them to never forget. Eddie would recall his own experiences and then point to a leather belt, his only personal item that survived the camps. On May 2019, he delivered a TEDx talk in front of 5,000 people.

His talk, the happiest man on earth, has been viewed by 2 million people. Here are some of the key takeaways from his talk. I do not hate anyone. Hate is a disease which may destroy our enemy, but also destroy you in the process. I made the promise when my son was born that from the day until the end of my life, I promise to be happy, smile, be polite, helpful, and kind. Today I teach and share happiness with everyone I meet. Happiness does not fall from the sky.

It's in your hands. If you're healthy and happy, you're a millionaire. Happiness also brings good health to the body and mind, and I attribute my 99 years of health, mostly to the positive and happy attitude. One flower is my garden, one good friend is my world. young people to gay forget to stop they're constantly running and don't know where they're running to you should take time to be happy and enjoy life there's a time to laugh and there's a time to cry

i see good things in life invite a friend or family member for a meal go for a walk tomorrow will come but first enjoy today his 2020 biographical memoir the happiest man on earth was an international bestseller Eddie Jeku died in Sydney on 12 October 2021 at the age of 101. His life floor died in Sydney on 6th July 22 at the age of 98. That is the story of Eddie Jeku. Wow. Just stop. Don't get overtaken by all of what's going on in your life and enjoy a sunset,

enjoy a walk and revel in the love of another human being and enjoy a meal with a friend and understand that alone can make you the happiest person on earth. What a story. Thank you, Anita. A hell of a story. A hell of a story. I don't know if I have much to add except read the book, watch the TED Talk,

and be inspired to choose to be happy because I think when we're surrounded by all the chaos that we feel like we're surrounded with in our lives. We just kind of recoil into this unhappy disposition of the rat race. And the truth is, if a guy who was put through all of this can choose to find happiness and a friend and the love of another person and a walk in the sunset, the truth is, even in the depths of all the chaos in our lives,

we can make the choice, the simple choice, to say, I'm going to wake up today and be happy and attack the day. And this guy, Eddie, I think, illustrates that beautifully. Yeah, the only thing I think I'd stress is, I really love his line. The greatest thing you will ever do is be loved by another person.

The greatest thing you will ever do is be loved by another person. Obviously, you have to love well to be loved by another person. So there's some action on your part, but... It's good stuff. It really is. And, you know, if you're going to serve and you're going to be part of Army and normal folks, you kind of need to love humanity a little bit and care.

But, I mean, I'm living proof that that love of humanity and care for people who, maybe not be as blessed as you. The love you get back from it is infinitely greater. And that does create a lot of happiness. And to any point, there's nothing like the love of another person, which you can get from service and all kinds of ways. So pretty and crazy stuff. Okay, that's Chop Talk number 79.

I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it helps you think. I hope it helps you choose to make today a great. day. If you have ideas from ShopTalk, please send them to us. You can reach me any time at Bill at NormalFolks. Us. If you like this episode, please rate, review it, share it with friends, share it on social, join the Army at NormalFolks. Us. Do any and all of these things that can help us grow our show and thusly our reach and thusly our impact. That is ShopTock number 79. Thanks for being with us. I'll see you next week.

Join me, Danny Trejo in Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows. An anthology of modern-day horror stories, inspired by the legends and lore of Latin America. Tales from the Shadow Bush on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Thanksgiving isn't just about food. It's a day for us to show up for one another. It's okay not to be okay sometimes

and be able to build strength and love within each other. I'm Elia Connie, host of the podcast Family Therapy, a series where real families come together to heal and find hope. I've always wanted us to have therapy. So this is such a beautiful opportunity. Listen to season two of family therapy every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough. I didn't kill them.

From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ed Helms host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Yeah.

It's going to be a whole lot of history. a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Shear, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan, Clepper. Listen to Season 4 of Snafu with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home?

Hey. Hey, we're so excited for you. for tonight. Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation at Agree2agree.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council. This is an IHeart podcast.