Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - Life Lessons From A Holocaust Survivor: Hannah Pick-Goslar (Anne Frank’s Best Friend) #378

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

For thousands of years, humans have used storytelling to enhance and change lives. From prehistoric fireside stories, to songs, novels, films, even social media reels, we are hardwired to seek identification and knowledge through hearing about other people’s experiences.   Some of my most popular podcast episodes to date have featured guests who do just this – relating their extraordinary life experience to fascinate, move and benefit all of those who hear it.  And I’m honoured to add today’s guests to that list.   Ruthie Meir is the daughter of the late Holocaust survivor Hannah Pick-Goslar. Dina Kraft is Hannah’s co-writer who helped bring her incredible story to life, in the brand-new book My Friend Anne Frank. Together Ruthie and Dina bring authenticity and emotional resonance to a real-life story, that will change the hearts and minds, of all who hear it.   If you are familiar with the famous ‘Diary of Anne Frank’, Hannah appeared in it as ‘Lies Goosens’.  As Ruthie and Dina explain to me, Hannah was born to Jewish parents in Berlin in 1928. After the Nazi Party was elected in 1933, the family escaped to what they believed was the safety of Amsterdam. And it was here that she met her friend, Anne Frank. The two became inseparable – until one day Anne just disappeared. Then in 1943, Hannah’s family was arrested and transported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and somehow Hannah managed to survive, until the camp was finally liberated.    It would have been lovely to talk to Hannah herself about her story, but she actually died back in October 2022 just a few weeks shy of her 94th birthday.   This is without question, a horrifying, unimaginable, and crushing story but at the same time, within it, there are definite moments of beauty, compassion and humanity.   It really was a great privilege to talk to Ruthie and Dina about Hannah and her life. I hope you enjoy listening. Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Thanks to our sponsors: https://drinkag1.com/livemore https://www.vivobarefoot.com/livemore https://www.boncharge.com/livemore Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/378 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Millions and millions of people were slaughtered in the Holocaust, right? And the world was completely silent. When good people stay quiet, terrible things can happen. When racism goes unchecked, it can lead to hatred. Hatred kills. We need books like this. We need books that tell people not just what Anne Frank went through in the Holocaust, but what Anne Frank tells us all takes place in the confines of the attic.

She didn't get to write the book about the horrors that came after. This is the book that Anna didn't get to write. Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. For thousands of years, humans have used storytelling to enhance and change lives. From prehistoric fireside stories to songs, novels, films, even social media reels, we are hardwired to seek identification and knowledge through hearing about other people's experiences. Now, some of my most popular podcast episodes to date have featured guests who do just this, relating their extraordinary life experience to fascinate, move, and benefit all of those who hear it. And I'm honoured to add today's guests to that list.

Ruth Humare is the daughter of the late Holocaust survivor Hannah Pick Goslar. Dina Craft is Hannah's co-writer who helped bring her incredible story to life in the brand new book My Friend Anna Frank. Together Ruthie and Dina bring authenticity and emotional resonance to a real life story that will change the hearts and minds of all who hear it. If you are familiar with the famous Diary of Anne Frank, Hannah actually appeared in it as Lise Goossens. As Ruthie and Dina explained to me, Hannah was born to Jewish parents in Berlin in 1928. And after the Nazi party was elected in 1933, the family escaped to what they believed was the safety of Amsterdam.

And it was here that she met her friend, Anna Frank. The two became inseparable until one day, Anna just disappeared. until one day, Anna just disappeared. Then in 1943, Hannah's family was arrested and transported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and somehow, Hannah managed to survive inside there until the camp was finally liberated. The book, My Friend Anna Frank, is the story of Hannah's life

before the concentration camp, throughout and after. Now, I was actually sent an early copy of this book a few months ago. And once I started reading, I simply could not put it down. It was moving, profound and genuinely hand on heart. One of the most important books that I have ever read. It's a remarkable story of how Hannah coped during her traumatic childhood and despite it all, blossomed into a kind, compassionate adult determined to honour her friends. It would have been lovely to talk to Hannah herself about her life story,

It would have been lovely to talk to Hannah herself about her life story But she actually died back in October 2022 Just a few weeks shy of her 94th birthday This is without question a horrifying, unimaginable and crushing story But at the same time within it There are definite moments of beauty, compassion and humanity It really was a great privilege to talk to Ruthie and Dina about Hannah and her life. I hope you enjoy listening. Dina, you obviously spent a lot of time with Hannah writing this book with her.

with Hannah writing this book with her. I wonder if you could outline her story for us, because maybe people listening or watching, they won't know her story. And there's so much I want to unpick within that story. But, you know, do you feel able to give us a bit of an overview? Sure, sure. So Hannah was born in 1928 in Berlin. Her father was a prominent journalist who had actually at this point become part of the Weimar government. It was a government that was formed after World War I and this idea for like a socialist democratic government. But it was, of course, in the throes of after World War I when Germany was sort of tearing itself apart over what had happened and their terrible sort of humiliating defeat in the war. And her father was one of the few Jews in the government. And he happened to also be a religious Jew, which is sort of unusual for the time to have a religious Jew in such a high post. But it was a very privileged life that she first was born into. Her family lived across from a beautiful garden in central Berlin called the Tiergarten. She'd

walk along the rose gardens with her father and go to the zoo and look at the elephants. And she would visit him at his office near the Reichstag, where the government was. He was observant of Shabbat, so he couldn't drive on Shabbat or take public transportation. So they would walk together sometimes when he had work to do there. And in the evenings they'd go to, her mom would whisk off in beautiful velvet dresses with her father to important occasions and parties and whatnot.

But the world suddenly became darker and darker and darker outside her door. The Nazis were rising, the Nazi movement was rising in power. Through her bedroom window, she could smell the smoke of books being burned. She could hear the sounds of boots on the ground as they were marching through the town, shouting anti-Jewish and anti-foreigner slogans. So this is many years before the war actually started.

Yes, yes. 1933. Yeah, this is like 1932, yes. This is like 32, 33. When she was still in Berlin. She was this tiny little girl, three, four years old. And her first memory is basically of the sounds outside and sort of her parents' worried voices. And then watching the house being packed up,

this beautiful grand apartment being packed up. And the family had to become refugees. Her father had been speaking out very prominently against Hitler on the radio, in newspaper columns. And he had been fired from his post in the government, like all Jews at this point had been fired from their posts in the government.

And he felt they had no future in Germany. And her parents felt incredibly connected to Germany, like so many Jews living in Germany. They were active in culture and many Jews living in Germany. You know, they were active in culture and in medicine and in teaching, and they felt they were very fabric, and all of a sudden the country was turning against them as this hatred was rising.

There were a thousand years in Germany, the family. A thousand years? Yeah, so they were more German than the Germans. Right. And they felt like this. And so it must have been heart-wrenching to suddenly feel in your… To be a refugee. …homelands that you're no longer welcome.

Yeah, her father had been a soldier in World War I. Like so many Jews thought in the World War I. This is Hannah's father. Hannah's father. So it's your granddad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Hannah's father. So it's your granddad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. And also my great-grandfather, he was one of the leaders of the Jews in Germany. And as leaders, they took care of the Jews in all the world, like in Morocco, like in Ethiopia, like in Russia, like in Warsaw, in Poland. like in Russia, like in Warsaw, in Poland. They were really around all the Jews in all the world to help them, to help really the poor people of them. Yeah. So the family are living in Berlin.

Things are starting to change dramatically. And you write at the start of this book, I think in the early chapters, basically about the family having to pack up and leave and take refuge in Amsterdam. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting, you know, they, they, they briefly touched down in England actually, but ended up ultimately in Amsterdam and like a lot of, you know, refugees from, from, from places of conflict or war, they kind of think they'll wait it out, right? They'll wait out, you know, Holland borders

Germany. They thought, you know, you, early days, they could even still visit Germany before the war. So they thought, you know, the way you see today, people fleeing Ukraine, where do they mostly go? Poland. You know, they're close by. They'll go back. That's what they hope. And they began to build a new life in Amsterdam. It was extremely difficult. They didn't have much money and they didn't speak the language. Hannah, Ruti's grandmother, described Dutch as a throat condition, not a language. And they basically,

Hannah's parents created a sort of an agency for fellow refugees out in their living room. Because they understood that the Jews will come there. They would have to fly from Germany. Right. And there wasn't a lot of support inside the country

for helping German refugees inside Holland. So he and a colleague and friend named Mr. Lederman created this two-man agency basically in the living room. And Hannah's mother helped out as the typist and secretary. And they were just sort of beginning to settle in and they had just arrived. And Hannah was terrified of going to school. She didn't speak a word of Dutch. She didn't know anybody. She had to be sort of pried off of the door of the family front door to get her to go to nursery school. And at nursery school, this big, beautiful Montessori school, which still exists in Amsterdam. With the same place that the children pray in the same places.

The same games. Nothing changes there. Yeah, these sort of high ceilings and beautiful doors leading out to a garden. It was at the time sort of a new idea of progressive education. And her parents were progressive and they wanted her to have a progressive liberal education. And she was sort of a shy child. And she was clinging to her mother's skirts and she was terrified. And speaking to the teacher and looking around at the children all busy with different sort of games and places.

And she sees a little girl with shiny black hair playing silver bells. And the girl turns around and they look at each other and they have this moment of recognition because just the day before in the grocery store, Hannah and her mother had overheard another woman and her daughter speaking in German. And they had exchanged a couple of words at the grocery store. And that was a little girl from the grocery store. And this little girl playing bells turns around, sees the very shy Hannah, looks at her.

They recognize each other and they run into each other's arms with a big, big hug, chattering away in German, two little refugee girls. And that little girl's name was Anne Frank. The Anne Frank, who I actually, I'm now learning that her name is actually Anna. Anna. Not Anne Frank, as it's often said. So Anna and Hannah, that was the start of this beautiful, poignant friendship

that is detailed so wonderfully in the book. It's also with the parents. The parents became very good friends. Every Shabbat, every Saturday, they used to eat together. So it's very traditional. Right, so the Jewish Sabbath begins on Friday night, and there's a traditional meal that goes with that. You have challah, this traditional egg bread called challah,

and you bless the wine and you have a nice meal together. And Hannah's family that was more religious would host this meal on Friday nights and Anna's family would come. Anna's family lived in the building just next door to theirs. So what's really interesting as we sort of unpick this story is, I think the similarities, at least at the start, from what happens when people flee a certain country. Like it's really interesting that they left Germany and found other Jewish families in Amsterdam and then shared that sort of cultural experience with them

to almost, I don't know, keep some sort of connection going. And I think about, and again, circumstances very, very different to be clear my parents were immigrants from India to the UK and you know I think now back to my childhood and they would have other Indian friends and they would do things that they used to do back at home as a way of sort of holding on to that culture so it's interesting to hear that similarity right they were holding on to what they were used to especially the mother she really wanted all the time if she could to go back to germany because she loved all the culture there it was very hard for her yeah to get used to the dutch culture now what's interesting for me is that we go through in the book, in the first person beautifully,

Hannah writing about her experiences in Amsterdam, meeting Anna Frank, going to school, you know, the things that other little girls go through, the things they were talking about, the things they were getting teased about. It feels like you're reading a really good fictional novel, yet it's actually real. It's all real. And what's striking to me is that as the war started closing in in Amsterdam, you know, the rising of the Nazis there, the restrictions being put on Jewish people there, she comes across as really upbeat, you know, like an optimist. Like even though they couldn't go to certain cinemas or no Jews allowed at that swimming pool in what she considered her home certainly as i read the book i read a story of

someone who is optimistic and positive is that is that fair to say she was very optimistic i think till the end of her life yeah and i think maybe because of this, she had good life. But what they did, the Germans, it was every day another thing. So you say, okay, I cannot go to the swimming pool. I will not go. I cannot sit on the bench in the park. Okay. I cannot see a film. I will do it at home.

I cannot go to sandbox. I will do it at home. I cannot go to sandbox. I will do it at home. So every, yeah, every day a new law, but you wanted to get used to it. Okay, I cannot go with a bicycle. I will go by foot. I cannot go with a bus. Okay. Everything they tried to get used to it and said, if this is what it is, it's not so bad, you know.

They didn't know in that time that all the Jews are sent to being killed in Poland, you know. Yeah, they didn't. So it's really interesting the way the Germans handled the Dutch story. When they ended up invading in May 1940, they called it a velvet conquest. So at first, everyone was terrified. I mean, imagine Hannah is in her bed. She hears the sound of what she thinks is thunder.

It turns out it's planes. It's Nazi war planes flying overhead. The invasion has begun. So let's just get a timeline here. Okay, how old is Hannah at this time? She's 11 years old. Okay. So that just gives me shudders that when I think about how old my children are at the moment, right? So she's 11 years old. She's living her life, her new life in Amsterdam, having her and

her family have fled from Berlin because they're scared and worried. And now they're getting scared and worried. And she, despite all the restrictions, she just goes to bed one night and she hears what she thinks is thunder, but it's actually planes. Okay. And she runs to her parents' bed and she jumps into her bed with her parents to be comforted. And they also think it's thunder at first. And then the father draws back the curtains. The first light of morning is beginning and they see plane after plane after plane. According to some accounts, the planes were flying so low that they could actually see the swastikas on the wings. Rotterdam at the time was being bombed into basically oblivion. Amsterdam was not bombed.

But the planes were coming in. And her father, who is a very calm man otherwise, very sort of fastidious, flies into a panic. He's convinced the Germans have come. He's going to be a public enemy number one because of his past government job and being a critic against Hitler. And they start trying to destroy any evidence they might have in the house that they were, that, you know, of his connection, of his past life. So out of the drawers come files and files of papers. And Hannah's job is to take the papers, which they're tearing up and toss them into the toilet and flush them down the toilet. And at the same time,

her mother sees a bronze statue, a bronze statue of her father's former boss, who had been the president of Prussia, who was one of, Otto Braun, who was one of Hitler's rivals, I guess you could say. And I think that's incriminating evidence. So they start hauling down the stairs of their apartment building, the statue of Otto Braun, and they put it, they shove it on the sidewalk and they look around them. And all around them are other German Jews. This neighborhood was in South Amsterdam. It was a new neighborhood. A lot of German Jews, refugees, had moved into this neighborhood. And they were also trying to get rid of whatever they thought might be criminating. And people were burning papers and files that they thought might be problematic.

So people are in a panic. Also, he left the house. He left the house for five weeks. He thought maybe he will find some... This is Hanazad, your grandfather. Yeah, yeah. He left the house because he was afraid when the Germans come, they will take him for sure.

So just again, I don't mean to keep pausing the story. It's just because obviously people may not have read the book yet. I hope everyone reads it. It's so, so compelling and engaging. And I really think it will help everyone. But I'll be honest with you. I couldn't put that book down when I started reading it. I was on holiday with my wife and kids and I just couldn't stop reading it. And every time I stopped, I would just hug my kids a little bit more. I was just a

little bit more grateful for my life, honestly. Like it's one of those books where i i don't think i quite see the world in the same way anymore but i'm you know my kids at the moment are 13 and 10 exactly the right so now you're telling me there's an 11 year old girl who is now trying to help her dad hide incriminating evidence because the nazis are. That is a completely different childhood to the childhood my kids are currently experiencing, that's for sure. So there's fear, anxiety, watching your dad probably change overnight in terms of character. I don't know, I mean, tell me what was that like? Yeah, he was very scared. And what he did was he tried to come here to this country. He tried to come to England, like thousands of other people. He rushed to the shores. He rushed to a port city about an hour

outside of Amsterdam, hoping to catch a boat to England. And although thousands and thousands of people went to that shore, I think in the end, 200 people were able to somehow secure passage to England. So it was this complete time of panic. And as Ruchi said, he lived in hiding for weeks and weeks until he finally came out. Yeah. Can I ask one thing that I've been thinking about a lot, that the title of the book is My Friend Anna Frank. Now, many people around the world know the story of Anna Frank through her diary. Okay. Now I'll be honest, I have not read her diary. I know many people have. I just haven't for whatever reason. I wasn't exposed to it at school. I think I'm going to try this summer now. But Hannah's story herself of this move,

her going to concentration camps, her surviving it, what happened afterwards, which we're definitely going to get into, that story has full merit of its own, right? So why the title, My Friend Anna Frank? Yeah, I think the title comes from this idea that the through line of her entire life was her friendship with Anna Frank. You know, she moved, you know, by chance she happens to befriend a little girl that becomes the face of Holocaust victims. Anna Frank has become sort of an icon, a symbol. You know, the numbers are too much to grasp. Six million is too much to grasp. 1.5 million children were killed. Yeah. And she's the face of the children of the Holocaust. And there's a certain, you know, heartbreaking irony where by, you know, we hear these exchanges in the book between Hannah and Anna when they were little and Anna wants to be famous, right?

Exactly. Her name is known all over the world. It's quite something, isn't it? Yeah. And to think that Anna was writing in captivity for over two years, she was living in this prison, which she called the secret annex, this attic above her father's work. But what's remarkable about her, the first title of the diary was Diary of a Young Girl. She was 13 years old when she begins the diary. She's, you know, just after, she gets it as a birthday present. But she's 15 years old when about nine months before she's arrested, a minister from the Dutch government in exile based in London has a broadcast.

By the way, it's illegal to listen to this broadcast, but they're in hiding and they're listening to it. And he says, Dutch people, save your diaries, save your letters, save any kind of first person accounts of what this war time is like, because after the war, people are going to want to know and need to know how we survived this moment. Everybody in the attic turns to Anna and says, you, your diary, you have to keep your diary for after the war. And from literally that day forth, she starts revising her diary with an eye to it being published after the war. So it's not just a diary, the musings, the unblossomings of a 13-year-old girl. It's a 15-year-old girl who's, as Ruti has said before, and as Hannah would always say, you know, it was in a sort of a hothouse, intense experience. She sort of, she, her, her, her

maturation, you know, increased exponentially because she of a hothouse, intense experience. She sort of, her maturation, you know, increased exponentially because she couldn't go anywhere, right? And she has this incredible depth of understanding and of her own, of self-awareness. And she writes, and in her editing is where the real genius comes out. She sort of takes some things out.

She moves things around. She adds suspense and tension. She adds background about the anti-Jewish laws, for example, about what's going on. And while she's writing in this diary, she's also writing about her beloved friend, Hannah. But therefore, a lot of people said, oh, there was no Hannah. It is not right. It is not written really because she changed. know there are some ways that it is written i say then in the end mr frank saw that everybody is talking about this and he said i will put everything inside whatever she did even if she wrote something about her mother and even she wrote even about my my

my mother that she had two left hands so he he put everything inside that people will know that this is real. What's striking for me is that I think it's when they rather fortuitously meet, while they don't see each other, they they hear each other in the concentration camps a couple years later or so um i think if my recollection serves me that anna told hannah that look i was that we were in hiding for over two years i didn't go outside the entire time and i just thought about that that's's a 13-year-old girl and a Frank in the attic, not going outside at all. Again, when I put it through the lens of being a dad of kids, I know what happens when a kid doesn't go outside for one day.

It's not easy. It's not easy, but you know, in the Holocaust, people had gone over very, very worse than what happened in the attic, you know? Yeah. Because they were just suffering their life, and humiliated and whatever. So let's say in Israel, people say, okay, so she was not going out. But that's not the point. Really, the point is what happened afterwards, what she suffered afterwards, the moment she was caught. Yeah? Of course, to live with this fear that you will be caught, it's very dreadful. But then to be caught, it's much more worse.

much more worse. Yeah. So let's go then to, maybe we could pick up the story when Hannah and her family have to go to the concentration camp. I mean, can you tell me about that moment? Yeah. So it was June 20th, 1943. Until this point, they were lucky enough to postpone deportation. Hannah's mother, for a couple of reasons, Hannah's mother was pregnant with what would have been her third child. She's afraid to go to the hospital to give birth there because she's heard terrible things.

It's German occupied Amsterdam and she doesn't feel safe giving birth in a hospital there. Because she's Jewish. Because she's Jewish. Because the Nazis would come to the hospital and take people. Yeah. Yeah, would take them, would deport them.

So she was concerned about that. So she decides to give birth at home with a Jewish doctor and a midwife. And unfortunately, there were complications with the delivery. It was a breach delivery. And she gives birth to a stillborn boy. And then she dies after two days. Yeah, and she died shortly after. And this is all happening in the house with Hannah there, you know,

hearing her in childbirth, hearing, and then, you know. Seeing the father praying that everything will be okay, and then it is not okay. So my understanding of the story is that one of the reasons So my understanding of the story is that one of the reasons that your mother Hannah and her father and the family were not being deported, were able to stay in Amsterdam. From what I understand from the book, there was two reasons. One was they had some sort of official papers because of the role of Hannah's dad. Exactly.

But then later on, when that seemed to not mean that much at all, there seemed to be something because Hannah's mother was pregnant, you couldn't be deported when pregnant. On that time, they didn't take pregnant women. On that time. Why did you, you know, that sounds like a... You never understand what the Germans did. But for whatever reason, so whilst

Hannah's mum was alive, they couldn't be taken. Well, assuming that the laws or the rules were going to be followed, but after the stillbirth, after her mum died, suddenly you don't have that reason anymore, is that right? It's not entirely clear, and I think this is actually an important point to say. We talked

about the Nazis sort of ruled at first with, in Hamas, the sort of velvet glove approach, you know, they sort of slowly, at first things seemed okay. And then slowly, slowly the restrictions on Jews got more and more intense. But what also was going on all the time is that it was really unclear what their policies were, you know? So you never really knew, you know, if you were safe or if you're not safe. And so you would follow certain rules and think you're okay, but then you would still get caught,

you know, you would still get sort of deported. So for example, Hannah's parents, her grandfather and her father were on what was called the Jewish Council. So they got a special stamp in their papers saying that they were to be spared. But, and then they thought, and at a certain point,

the German Jews thought that they were gonna to be safer, the German, the German refugee Jews. Another point, the Dutch-born Jews thought they would be safer. And the Nazis constantly played on this sort of divide and conquer and this sort of rivalries even within the community. And actually what started, what got Hannah's father and grandfather involved in what was called the Jewish Council was because in July 1942, the first call-up orders, the first mass call-up orders began in Holland. And who were they taking? Mostly teenagers, 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds were getting call-up orders to be deported to the east. Again, they didn't know what the east was. For a working camp.

And my mother said, oh, 16 years 16 years boy he goes to a working camp this is what they need and they never never came back right so they didn't they didn't at this point they didn't know they weren't coming back but they um but they knew it was not good no one wanted to see their 15 or 16 year old child being sent off and it's it's exactly order. The Frank family got an order that Anne's older sister, Margot, who was 16, was going to have to get called up. At this point, imagine the Frank family had been planning for over a year, I think, to go into hiding, but they weren't quite ready to go into hiding yet. But they move up their plans once Margot was called, the order for her was called up comes so that she will not be taken

away. The way it's written in the book is very much that one day hannah just goes around exactly this is how it happens for whatever to to play or i can't but exactly yeah and actually they're just like so no they've gone they've gone to switzerland exactly only later on did she did she sort of connect the dots and realize that margo had been called up and that's why they the timing was the let's yeah and of course it was complete surprise and of course they had to be told that because you couldn't share these things with anyone and when my mother was going back from this house of anna she saw her friend alfred bloch and he got the same calling from the german and he had to go because he couldn't go in hiding

and he was killed in two months. Yeah. So just to back up a minute. I mean, so that night in July, if you were in those apartments overlooking this beautiful green square at 2 a.m., if you pulled back your curtain, what would you see? You would see a scene of dozens and dozen of 15 and 16-year-old Jewish teenagers. I'm going to cry. Sorry. With their rucksacks and their bedrolls. They were told very specifically what to bring. And they were walking quietly in the darkness to the central train station of Amsterdam. Their parents were not allowed to come with them because

there was a curfew. Jews were not allowed out of the house after 8 p.m. So imagine these parents sending out their 15 and 16-year- old children into the darkness and what would eventually become their doom they didn't know that yet um and uh and and most of and anyone who saw that you know would have seen them going out um in this sort of these sort of ghost-like figures walking across the green and they never came back no one so So Anna's family have gone into hiding. No one knows that. It's kept secret. My mother was sure they were in Switzerland. So Hannah thinks, oh, great that they've escaped. Gutted that she hasn't gone with them.

How soon after that does Hannah, her little sister Gabby, and her father get on one of these trains to, is it Westenbrook they went for? It was one year later. One year later. So in that one year, they're still living, fear, the screws tightening even more. And then what actually happens in that moment? It's in complete secrecy. The Germans have blocked off every single bridge to South Amsterdam. As you know, Amsterdam is a city of bridges. And so if you block off the bridges, there's no route to escape. And there are tanks and there are trucks and there's no way to escape. And there are loudspeakers in the street saying,

all Jews come down to report to such and such square. 20 kilograms, five minutes. You have to go. And so actually Hannah's family, her father said, we're okay. We have our stamps and our passport. We are protected. We don't have to go. And then lo and behold, there's a knock on the door and they're told very quickly that their stamp means nothing and that they have to go and report down to the square below. So it's Hannah? It's Hannah, her little sister who's just two and a half years old. So her sister Gabby's just two and a half years old. So her sister, Gabby. The grandfather and grandmother. Her dad and her grandfather and grandma.

So five of them head down to the main station. Well, yeah, first they go down to another sort of square area where the Jews are being assembled. And imagine people are bringing their bags again and their bedrolls. And they're bringing winter coats because although it's June, they know they're going east and east can be cold. They don't know if it's a different country

or they just know on the compass we're going east, basically. No, it is not good, but they don't know. But what's interesting, that same morning of June 20th, 1943, at 6 a.m., just a block or two away from them, we talked about Mr. Lederman,

who worked together with Hannah's father. He had a daughter named Zana. Zana was- Zane. Zane, Zane, short for Suzanne. She was good friends also with Hannah and Anna, and they were a threesome. And tell us, how do you- Anne, Hannah, Zane. And she was a beautiful little girl with dark hair, braids, very musical. Her parents were musicians, and they're also from Berlin. Part of that milieu we were talking about before, they would have Sunday afternoons of concerts in their home, very cultured people. Her father was a lawyer, and she had an older sister. Her name was Barbara.

And so Barbara had a boyfriend who was in the underground who had warned her, do not get deported because if you get deported, what's happening, what we're hearing in our underground sources is you will be killed. Do not go. And in the end, Barbara goes underground and gets fake papers. Her parents refused to do so. Her father, like so many other of these German Jews

that were kind of sticklers for just doing everything the right way, he said, I have never broken the law. I will never, I am not going to break the law now. If I'm called up, I will go. By chance, that night before, she had snuck out of her hiding place, had come back to the family home because she missed her parents, you know, and she missed her little sister. And she again pleads with them, come underground with me, come underground with me. And they say, no, we can't do it. That morning at six in the morning, before anybody else knows, someone from the underground has been sent to collect her, to tell her, to warn her to leave.

What is that person's name, their codename? Cassandra, of all names. Cassandra, the Greek, you know, the person giving the word of doom. And she tells her parents and they say, no, no, no, we are going to go. And they're sort of pleading and going back and forth. And the father at one point says, my child, you have my blessing. Go.

Go. And she goes, and she goes across. But she couldn't take Zani. She couldn't take her little sister. Her parents didn't want to depart ways. So she's gone. She's gone. The elder daughter.

She's still living in the United States. She's's gone. She's gone. The elder daughter. She's still living in the United States. She's still alive. She's 97. She's 97 and still alive. And so she was living underground. And I think her husband got such a Nobel Prize. He was a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry years later. Anyway, she...

And the other three in the family? All murdered in Sobibor. But they left behind letters. The family left behind letters. And those letters were very helpful for me when I was working on the book. How did you get the chance to even write this book? How did that come about?

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By chance, like 20 plus years ago, when I was working as a journalist for the Associated Press in Jerusalem, I was assigned to interview Hannah. And I was so delighted. I was so nervous. I was so excited to meet this here. As you described, like I felt like Anna Frank was one of my friends after reading about her. And then I was gonna meet a real life friend. And I was so moved. I was so taken. I always remembered her story. And in January last year, I got a phone call from a literary agent saying that Penguin Random House was looking for a ghost writer. And they didn't know who the person was. They just said it was a Holocaust survivor and she was 93 years old. chance. Three weeks earlier, Hannah's name had like popped up into my head. And I Googled Hannah Pitt Goslar to see honestly, if she was still alive. I just wanted to know if she was still with us. And I was so relieved. Oh, she is. And then three weeks later, I get this phone call asking, basically asking if I'd be interested in throwing my name in the hat to help write

this story. So you get the gig to write the book. And look, it sounds like you were familiar with the story of the Holocaust in quite a lot of detail from your work as a journalist. I'm also the daughter of a family that were refugees from Nazi Europe. Oh, really? Yes.

So it very much felt like, in some ways, sort of a person, it felt almost like called to the story in a way. Yeah, so you already know a lot of the facts, right? Of what's being presented about what happens. But then there's logical facts and then there's emotional experiences. And often they're two very different things, right? So I guess has something changed in your outlook on what happened in the 1930s and 1940s from your conversations with Hannah?

Because you knew it all before, I guess. You knew a lot of it before. But so what changed in you? Because suddenly I was walking in Hannah's footsteps. I was like thinking Hannah's thoughts. I was trying to get into Hannah's footsteps. I was like thinking Hannah's thoughts. I was trying to get into Hannah's emotional state of being. I sort of had to sort of like become a vessel for Hannah as it were. And I was so intense and so involved that after Hannah and I would have a

session, I would, we would both say, oh, we're so tired. But I remember a few, a few mornings, we would sort of come back together and she would say, oh, I, I was having bad dreams again. And I was like, oh, I was having bad dreams again last night too. It was almost sort of like our dream worlds kind of intersected because I was sort of living and breathing her experience so intensely. So involved. Yeah. So that I sort of took it on almost as my own. I know you heard this conversation before you came on the show. I spoke to Edith Eger a few years ago now, a conversation that truly changed me.

And she was in Auschwitz concentration camp. And I know she's given a wonderful front cover quote for this book. Have you ever met Edith? No, but I would love to. She's the hero of mine after reading her book. Yeah, I mean, she calls this book heartbreaking and life-affirming. And there's something about that.

That's how I feel about it. There's something harrowing about the story, but beautiful at the same time. The great friendship that, you know, when you are starving and you think to bring food to your friend that is starving or you think she's even more starving than you. Well, the humanity really shines through, right? And so let's jump to that part of the story, maybe, whereby Hannah thinks that Anna Frank and her family have managed to escape and they've gone to Switzerland.

She doesn't know that they were actually hiding up in the attic. So she thinks that her friend Anna is safe. Hannah then with her family is in a concentration camp, not eating much. They're starving. They're having to do the most just horrendous things. just horrendous things. And then she gets word that her old friend, Anna,

is just over the fence. Let's pick up the story there. How did that come about? Yeah. So Bergen-Belsen, at this point in February... So Bergen-Belsen is the name of this second concentration camp.

Right. Yes. It's a massive complex with all sorts of camps and sub-compounds. And this is still in Holland? No, this is actually in Germany. No, no, it's in Germany. It's in East camp. Right. Yes. It's a massive complex with all sorts of camps and sub-compounds. And this is still in Holland? No, this is actually in Germany. No, no, it's in Germany.

It's in East Germany. Right. So at this point in the war, the war is going very badly for the Germans. And Bergen-Belsen is suddenly swelling with prisoners. It's expanding, like exponentially the numbers of people coming in are being crammed in, in larger and larger numbers. But the Germans don't want the Russians to see what's happening in camps like Auschwitz. So they're taking the Jews on these terrible death marches

westward towards Germany. So they can sort of basically kind of warehouse as many of the other Jewish prisoners inside Germany and not inside Poland. And among the people that came from Auschwitz, whether by foot or by train, were women who were housed in a camp next to the camp that Hannah was in.

So imagine it's a huge complex of a camp, but there are different camps within the camp. Hannah was in a slightly more privileged, quote unquote, part of Bergen-Belsen because she had two things going for her. She had a foreign passport that was basically bought by her family. Paraguayan passport. A Paraguayan passport. And she also has something called a Palestine certificate. This meant that she was part of a group called the Exchange Jews, that the German government hoped to exchange for British prisoners of war.

So they were going to- British prisoners. Yes, exactly. So the Germans and the British had this sort of slight, this plan going on. They would do some sort of swap. So that is partially also what gave Hannah and her family hope when they were in Bergen-Belsen that they would be eventually swapped as part of this exchange. So because of this, unlike the other prisoners in other parts of Bergen-Belsen who had their hair shorn and were wearing black and white prison garb,

they were allowed to keep their hair and their clothes. And they got a little bit better conditions with food. And anyway, there's this group of women that are being moved into this camp next and they see them in this sort of tent camp. And anyway, there's this group of women that are being moved into this camp next and they see them in this sort of tent camp and they're very, most of them are like sort of rail thin and wearing, again, the black and white prison garb. Pretty soon the Germans don't decide, they don't want the women from the both camps

looking at each other or exchanging information. So they cover the fence with straw so they can't look through. And it's still, it's very dangerous for any kind of communication between the fence because, you know, you would be dead if you were caught. But women being women, they wanted to communicate. They were desperate for information. And one day they started hearing some Dutch on the other side, some Dutch women had come on their side. And so words were changed in Dutch. Somehow it filters through back to one of the women who

was a neighbor back from this neighborhood that she'd come from in Amsterdam and said, listen, Anna Frank, she's on the other side of that fence. And Hannah says, how can that possibly be? Anna is safe in Switzerland, having hot chocolate with her grandmother. You know, she had this very sort of idyllic vision of her in Switzerland being safe. And she's so confused and so upset. She decides she has to go find out for herself because if Anna's there, she needs to know. And the women who were in the barracks with her are saying, don't do it. You have a little sister here that you're taking care of inside the barracks who's only, you know, at this point about three years old. You can't risk it. She says, no, I must go see my friend. Again, this loyalty to Anna sort of runs throughout her entire life. Well, this is what one of my questions was.

Why do you think, either one of you, I guess, why when it is so dangerous to leave the barracks and go to the fence, right? Why did she risk it all to try and find Anna? Because it isn't just her. She's also looking after her little sister who's what three or three about three and a half three and a half at the time I think it is the connection to the former life have you spoken to this have you spoken about this with your mom like why did you go why why did you not just stay in your relative safety why did you risk it all

she never thought herself as a hero you You know, whatever she did in the Holocaust, including to help her sister and her father, she even brought him medicines and she didn't eat and she bought medicines. She didn't do as if she's a hero but i think she she wanted to have some connection with what the life was before so she'd heard that her best friend's yeah and she was shocked she was shocked she was sure she's drinking chocolate so she hears that so she hears this and she comes out and imagine this you know it's it's February, it's cold, it's icy rain. She's wearing the same jacket she'd been wearing for two years. So at this point, it wasn't in her wrist anymore.

It was probably up to her elbow. And she goes to the fence. This is at night, right? So dark has fallen. You're meant to be locked up in your barracks. Correct. And she then creeps out. She creeps up very quietly.

Avoids the spotlight. Shivering both with fear and with cold, you know, and approaches the fence. And in a very small voice goes, Hello. Hello. Anybody there? And by chance, a voice replies. It's a woman named Mrs. August van Pels, a Dutch, a German woman who had also lived in the neighborhood and who had by chance

been in hiding with Anne Frank and her family. And she says... The parents of Peter, the mother of Peter. The mother of Peter, the boy she had a relationship

with in the attic, her friend slash boyfriend. And she says, oh, you must be here for Anna. Margot is too sick to come, but I will bring Anna. Margot is Anna's big sister.

Right. But it's almost like in a voice like, oh, I will come bring her down as if it was like normal times. You know, I will, you must be waiting for Anna. Oh, is Anna's big sister. Right. But it's almost like in a voice like, oh, I will come bring her down as if it was like normal times, you know? You must be waiting for Anna. Oh, Anna. Yeah, yeah, sure.

I'll go and get her. Exactly. Like it's very sort of a casual tone. And she brings Anna to the fence. And remember, she can't see her because it's with the barbed wire, but she hears her and she recognizes her voice and she knows it's her.

But it's sort of like a, it's a voice that's sort of weak and raspy. And she quickly, the first thing they do is they just start crying. Two little, two girls on the opposite ends of this fence under this dark, rainy, freezing night, you know, in tears. But they quickly, they don't have a lot of time. Through the tears, they tell each other, they update one another. Hannah tells her, her mother had died in childbirth. She didn't know that. She told her that her father is very weak in the Bergen-Belsen hospital, that her sister Gabi is still with her. Their grandmother is still alive. And Anna wails, I am all alone in the world.

I have no one. You at least have your father and your sister and your brother. I have no one else in the world. And I am very hungry. I have nothing to eat. And then my mother said, I will go and fetch you something. I don't know how she promised this because nobody had anything to eat. Nobody had food. Nobody had any spare food.

Nothing. And, you know, Anna described that Anna, you know, Anna's most beloved feature was her hair. She had this dark brown chestnut hair and she used to like spend all the time to make it have a little curl

and a wave and she loved her hair and she said that her beautiful hair was gone, that, you know, her hair was shorn. She was, you know, she was wearing these pajamas.

She had a blanket to kind of, she had sort of a A lot of flies. You know, a lice-infested blanket around her. lot of flies you know a lice infested blanket around her i mean it was a broken shadow of this incredibly vivacious dynamic friend and you've obviously spoken to hannah about this at length what when anna said to her i need some

food can you can you get me some i'm starving and she said yeah Can you get me some? I'm starving. And she said, yeah, I'll get you some. Given that there is no food and they're in a concentration camp and she can't get enough for her and her little sister, let alone for Anna on the other side of the fence, what was going through her mind? When she spoke to you about the story, was it like an inner resolve? I am going to get her food. What was going on? I think she said she had no idea how she was going to do it, but she just had to say yes to Anna. She didn't want to let her friend down. It just broke her heart to refuse her, you know? And she didn't have a plan at hand. I think it was just a spontaneous, generous answer of, yes, my friend is broken. My friend is is in need i'm going to help my friend

she didn't have the how yet but she knew she was going to do it how would she arrange to re-meet up they're you know they're on different sides of the fence it's like they're probably they don't have watches or anything they talked about it we will come let's say in three days and she said yes she said come back to the fence i think it was the two nights later come back and i'll i will get something together for you by then. And she creeps back, you know, through the mud, through the ice, through the cold. She goes into the barracks and the women are, you know, are surrounding her in the barracks. And this is in a story of like supreme, I would say like female solidarity.

They come together and say, we're going to help this child. We're going to help this girl on the other side of the fence. They don't know her, you know, but they know Hannah and say, we're going to help this child. We're going to help this girl on the other side of the fence. They don't know her, you know, but they, but they know Hannah and they love Hannah. And, um, and if you remember that, you know, in the barracks, so many people have been separated from their own family members and they kind of created new families and new connections. And there's a woman named Mrs. Abraham who had seven children who took on, um, Hannah and her little sister Gabby as her own. And they created their own sort of like, you know, nest had seven children, who took on Hannah and her little sister Gabby as her own. And they created their own sort of like, you know, nest, as it were, you know, within the barracks.

And she had a sister and it was remarkable. And I think in other times in history, I think back to the story of African-Americans in America when they lived in slave cabins. And so many of their members of the families were being sold by the owners to different people. And they had to create their own families to survive. You had a family or you had someone, you had strengths. The moment you were alone, you really had no chance. So this Mrs. Abrams with her seven children, you know, let's say today you want a babysitter from a neighbor and they have seven children. They will say, oh, we cannot take your child. No, she said, your father helped everybody.

Now it's my turn. The humanity, the kindness, when you're starving and everyone's starving, Nana will help you, will help you get some food to your friends. When I spoke to Edith Eger on the podcast a few years ago, there's so many things I remember from that conversation. But one of the things she said to me, or one of the stories she relayed was about how kindness ended up saving her life. She once got given from memory, like a little rusk of bread. And she said, it would have been so easy just to eat that myself. No one was around. I could have just had it all and I was starving, but I didn't. I broke it into

six or seven pieces and shared it. And then at some point in the future, when they were on what she thought was their death march just before liberation, Edith shared how she just didn't have the energy to go on and she was just lying there on the ground. And those same people who she shared the bread with- Came to help her. Came to help her. And so I think there's a beauty in the midst of this torture and dehumanization. To see the humanity of the people. humans can still be kind.

And they kept them. And that's what I think kept them together. They could say, we're in the midst of complete barbarity. We're being whipped and tortured and killed and left like less than dogs on the road. I mean, again, imagine outside of their barracks, there were piles and piles of corpses. imagine outside of their barracks, there were piles and piles of corpses. In the book, when Hannah's father has just died, she didn't want to look anywhere where she previously has said trucks where you'd see the legs of dead bodies. I don't want to see any of that because I don't want to see my dad's legs. And it's unimaginableable unimaginable to someone like me what that is like completely unimaginable i can read it i can hear it from you and it wasn't that long ago

that's the that's the the really profound scary worrying um sort of message for me you know that's a question i have for both of you actually and i wonder what your mother ruthie hannah would say if she was here given what she went through and overcame and the beautiful life that she lived afterwards right which i definitely want to talk about is there a feeling that this could happen again exactly people say what you as the second generation of the holocaust say and i think really the feeling that everything everything can be nice and lovely and it can be broken in one moment. I guess the wider question is then,

why is it so important that this book was written? Why are survivor stories like Hannah's so important? Millions and millions of people were slaughtered in the Holocaust, right? And the world was completely silent. Her neighbors were, for the most part, completely silent when they saw those kids in rucksacks going across the square, when they saw the call-up orders of the Jews in their neighborhood, like Hannah's family being loaded into trucks and on to what they went on to. People were mostly quiet. When good people stay quiet, terrible things can happen. When racism goes unchecked, it can lead to hatred. Hatred kills. Hannah saw that in front of her own very eyes. And by chance, she survived that hell. And she's able to tell us throughout her life, she never stopped telling the story, right?

place. And we need books like this. We need books that tell people not just what Anne Frank went through in the Holocaust, what Anne Frank tells us all takes place in the confines of the attic. She didn't get to write the book about the horrors that came after. This is the book that Anna didn't get to write. Yeah. But my mother saw also good people. Let's say the woman of the Rabbi Koretz that gave her for Gabi two glasses of milk. Now, Gabi was three and a half years old, and they only gave till three years old. But these

two glasses, this is between death and living. And this woman could take it for herself, for her children. She gave it in the camp, she gave it to Gabi. Yeah, she a... And this woman could take it for herself, for her children. She gave it in the camp. She gave it to Gabi.

Yeah, she gave it to Gabi. She was in charge of giving milk. Her husband knew the father of my grandfather. There's a lot of sort of like paying forward. You know, Hannah's father was a very giving person and a very helpful person in the community. And to see how even when he was not there physically anymore to help his daughters, his sort of the memory of how he had helped others,

helped others help his daughters. It's interesting. We talk a lot on the show about kindness and the importance of kindness and compassion and the health benefits of kindness and compassion. But it strikes me as though a lot of people, let's say Hannah's father, were being kind because it's the right thing to do. Just because that's who we are. We have a strong faith.

This was the way of living. That's the way of living. That's what you do. And I guess that's a message we can all take. You never know when the kindness you give out to people will be repaid. Like, don't do it for that reason. Do it because it's the right thing to do. And so in a world now, particularly because of the online world where many people are seeing division, hatred, racism, bigotry, and intolerance to people with different views. I'm interested, was there anything Hannah saw over the last few years, over the last 10, 15 years,

that reminded her of the, you know, the march up to the concentration camps? Because what's really interesting about the story, looking at it now, you know, in hindsight, is the many years where this was building and building and building and things were getting worse and the wars were closing in before the actual war on concentration camps. So was there anything Hannah would observe or you guys observe in society and go, this is on a slippery slope? She was very much afraid of what the Iranians want to do to Israel because they say, we want to sweep Israel. And this made her very, very frightened. So hearing that language was triggering for her?

So hearing that language was triggering for her? She was afraid of it because they say, we want to sweep you out. And she said, how can it be after the Holocaust that country can say something to kill others and that they will not be anymore? I was really struck by Hannah's interest in the world. She was a very curious person and very, very much focused on the news and what was happening in the world. Till the end. Till the end. And in the last months of her life,

it was the same time that there was the uprising of women in Iran. So she was always very aware and attuned to sort of injustice in the world, no matter where it was happening. And I think, yeah, I don't think she felt that the coast was now clear. The whole reason she kept telling her story from 1957 onwards,

1957 is when Otto Frank kind of anoints her and says, will you go speak about your story? And imagine 1957, most Holocaust survivors were not telling their story yet. Nobody was talking in Israel. They would say to them, oh, you went like sheep to slaughter. And the survivors were a little bit ashamed, you know? Rita, can I ask you, you said there was a guilt with the survivors. Was the guilt that they had survived whereas others had died?

Or was there a guilt and shame that they'd actually ended up there? Both of them. It was very complicated. But other people would look at them and say, what did you have to do to survive in the camps? You know, and they would say like, my father or my family didn't survive. What did you, like,

what bread did you steal out of someone's hand? You know, she came to Israel. It was a brand new country. And there was this sort of this founding idea that, you know, we are strong. We are, you know, we have to be strong and mighty. And the idea of the victims of the Holocaust, it felt like they had done something sort of almost shameful by not surviving and not rebelling. A remarkable thing is that, you know, a few years later, you know, after 50, in 1961,

Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust is apprehended. He's in hiding. He's living in hiding in Argentina. And one of the most amazing things to me about Hannah's story is how she touches on so many historical turning point moments. You know, she happens to like move in next door to Anne Frank, who becomes the face of the Holocaust. She herself survives the Holocaust. She's in the early days of the founding of the state of Israel. And then one of her cousins, by chance, is the chief interrogator of the Mossad and apprehends Eichmann and brings him back to trial. If you don't believe in fate or some higher powers, then this story

really makes you think about it. Even the fact that by chance, amongst tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of prisoners, she's somehow just across the fence from her best friend anna i mean let's just go back to that story for a minute so we've we've got to the point where she gets word that anna's next door she's shot because she thinks she's in switzerland she has that little conversation with her comes back tells her the women in her barrack look my friend's starving we need to get food so they they somehow get some food together. Then what happens? Yeah. And again, like you mentioned with Edith, people have food and they usually save it for themselves, right? So a couple of weeks before,

one of the only Red Cross packages had actually arrived to her side of the camp. So everyone got a little small, little shoebox size of dried fruit and a few rusks, like not very much. And then some of them had squirreled little bits and pieces of it away for themselves. But when she came and said, listen, I need help, everybody started going back to their bed and tucking things out from under pillows and bringing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And they put it inside of a sock and Hannah went off again in the cold, in the bitter. So she snuck out, risking her life again to throw it to Anna. And she goes to the fence and she calls out Anna.

Anna comes to the fence and she says, hi, doesn't waste any time. I'm throwing it to you now. And all of a sudden she hears footsteps and she hears a scream, a primal scream. It's Anna screaming and crying and sobbing because those footsteps belonged to a woman who'd come and stolen the food package out from under her. She was also hungry. Yeah. So this is where the interest, so there is kindness and humanity, but there's also self-preservation. But you can't judge it. You can't judge it.

Exactly. I get it. I get it. And I think any of us who think we know what we would do. We don't know what we would have done. I agree. We just no idea when that sort of pressure is exerted on us, how we're going to act. We don't know ourselves.

We don't. No, it's a test you never want to have to undergo right yeah so Anna doesn't get the foods and she is inconsolable and Hannah in order to placate her says

don't worry I will come back and I will come back tomorrow night just come back to the fence tomorrow night I will find you food and again she has no idea how she's going to make this happen again

how she's going to make something out of nothing because she has already gotten from the people. But she just, again, another act of friendship, another act of giving and loving and caregiving. I mean, Hannah, after the war, becomes a nurse. And she is, in her very being, she is a caregiver. And so she says, I will bring you something. Just stop crying. Just stop crying.

I will come back. And so she does get some food together. She goes back to those, once back to that amazing group of women and their solidarity and their friendship and their kindness. Again, they scrimp and scrape whatever they possibly can find. And she goes back, creeps out into the dark night again. Again, imagine every time this is risk of being shot and killed on the spot. And she comes out and she creeps in this time. They're a little bit more strategic. She says, I'm throwing its in. This time, they're a little bit more strategic. She says, I'm throwing it to you. You know, she says where,

they sort of say where they're standing so they can, because they can't see each other, remember. They make sort of a triangulation kind of a plan. She throws it over the fence. Boom, Anna catches it. Wow. That's the last time they see each other. Yeah, because then the grandfather was very ill

and he died. Her father, Hannah's father. He died. Sorry, Hannah's. Hannah's father. Yeah. So she stayed some days, you know, as if to mourn. So when she left Anna Frank for the, well, what is now the last time, right?

So I'm just interested what was going through her mind. So she's got some food this time for her, for her friends. Her friends will leave, but she's got it. How did they leave it then? It was very, very rushed because they were, you know, they knew that they had, the time was limited. So it was a very rushed, but the fact that they were able to say to each other, maybe we'll see each other in the fall at school. Here they were, you know, again, completely like, you know, dehumanized to the ultimate degree. Their families, you know, they're basically both orphaned at this point, you know, or on the verge of being orphaned for Hannah.

And yet they could still imagine a better place. They could still imagine a normal world outside of this planet called hell, called Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They can imagine going back to school in the fall, which to me is actually very inspiring. They could still imagine some sort of real normal life. Well, I've written in my notes, one of the things I've circled is the words imagination because it strikes me throughout this entire,

and I'm aware the book can only detail certain moments of a long story, right? So there's many days of probably tedium, heartache, torment, seeing people be murdered, torture. You can't write it. It would be a hundred times the size, right, to detail every day. But you would need imagination to get through, right? I think imagination helps you stay normal, as if to go to another world for at least some minutes, some minutes not to be tortured, just to be in another place.

Helps you stay alive. Yeah, very much so. And I think Hannah, always there was a roadmap for her and her life. Her father kept saying, we are going to be exchanged one day and we are going to go to Palestine. We are going to go, they called Eretz Israel, the land of Israel. At this point, it was British mandate Palestine. And so they always had that hope and that imagination. And she could sort of imagine a life, you know, living on a kibbutz, becoming a nurse. She had where to go and she had an idea of how she was going to get there. This idea of hope, again, it's something I think about a lot. There's many famous people who have survived the Holocaust who have written books.

Well, maybe not enough actually, but there's a few, right? So Viktor Frankl and his book, Man's Search for Meaning, he talks about purpose. Yeah, exactly. This is what she had. Yeah. She had a meaning, first of all, to take care of her sister. Well, there's this bit in the book, page 236. And it's this idea that they go to sleep together each night together. They wake up together,

her with a little sister, Gabby, who's what, three at the time, three and a half? Everything about us was intertwined. We fell asleep next to one another every night. It was seeing Gabby when I woke up in the morning that had forced me to move forward. In even the blackest of moments, I had done all I could to keep her alive, which in turn had stopped me from giving up. Exactly. It was from both sides. This, she took care of her her sister really made her stay alive because she had significant for her life, like Viktor Frankl says.

Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health, and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you

back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour. I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve our relationships. There are, of course, many different ways to journal.

And as with most things, it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three-question journal. In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than

five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three-question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. I want to draw not a comparison, but I just want to share something,

not in any way to trivialise this. Honestly, I'm not saying it's the same thing at all. But one thing as a doctor that I see, and there's good research on this now, is that when we do things for others, when we volunteer, it can be so powerful for our inner well-being. Many people who suffer with depression, actually volunteering and getting out in a community where you have to do things for others, where you feel that people need you and they rely on you, I have seen transformative changes. Now, I'm not at all comparing that to being in the holocaust being in a concentration camp but it's interesting that there's a theme there that when you have hope when you have to do something for for something beyond who you are you can get through stuff the principle is the same yeah that you take today old people that come and help other old people

old people that come and help other old people, it gives them hope and significance to their life. They are not useless. I was going to ask about Gabi. I have to tell you about Gabi. So Gabi is your auntie, right? My aunt, my great aunt. She is something. How old is she now? 82, full of life, like my mother. Now, I cannot imagine this. If I ever come to visit in Israel, which I hope to do, I'd love to meet her because... You will meet her, you will be impressed. I've read about her as a little girl.

And one of the most profound things in this book for me, I mean, I could give you a list, but when they are liberated, and Hannah talks about, I think it's spring and there's flowers and she goes oh I don't think Gabby knows what a flower is not what chocolate is that just hit me that just hit me right in my heart like maybe four years old she has no idea the colors of a flower and it just dawns on you how ridiculous, how crazy this whole situation was, how dark it was.

How people did that to other people. How people did that to other people. But you know- That's the remarkable thing, isn't it? There's other humans are doing that to other people, why? Right, hatred, it just goes to the old, people talk about antisemitism as the oldest hatred. We look at, you know, racism and prejudice around the world.

And Jews have been experiencing it since time immemorial. And at a time like today when anti-Semitism is again resurging and hatred is again resurging, and the way leaders speak, you know, and the sort of the rise of the far right and the rise of the sort of incredible sort of divisive and cruel language and outsiders and insiders and foreigners and nationalism. I mean, a lot of the echoes of what we heard, you know, at the dawning of the second world war, or even the first world war that led to the second world war, we are hearing again today, those messages, things that we never thought we would hear before. The fear, I think about my own grandparents who were living in Italy in 1939 and had to flee and imagining them in their kitchen

and trying to find somewhere in the world to go to. And that always felt so abstract to me. But in recent years, it feels much less abstract. Yeah. It's interesting. Recently, I'm not sure how much of this you're aware of. And I must be honest, we're all biased in terms of what we're exposed to and so what we see. So the whole issue of refugees in the UK is a political hot potato, let's put it like that. And recently, and this is not really a political show at all, like it's a health podcast, but I think this is really, really important because I think this absolutely impacts health. Like the media and politicians often like to other people, because that's also what we're talking about, isn't it? We're talking about just othering people. And it's when you other them, that's when you can start this slow decline and discrimination and prejudice and

dehumanization. We're seeing so much division and it feels really urgent, you know, that like these, when people, you know, especially with social social media people don't feel any real accounting for their own words you know people sort of throw things out and the level of cruelty and the level of bashing

is you know the way of talking when you write it on a paper or in the computer you don't see anybody that you

you talk to so people really write things very very dirty very not good. And people can also sort of hide behind these words. And, you know, and you see people being, you know, especially even to the refugee issue you mentioned, you know, the sort of dehumanization and the language of sort of like cancer and vermin.

And again, those are the words that we heard back in the 1930s. So the message being words matter. And I think a take home for everyone listening or watching this. We say words can kill. If you are not saying the right words, it can kill someone. And not saying a word can also kill, right?

I mean, words can be deadly, but silence can sometimes be even more deadly when the sort of fanatic minority takes control and sort of reason flies out the door, when good people stay silent, because it's too inconvenient for whatever reason, when people stay silent, that's when you look at the story of Hannah, when you look at the story of the rise of Nazism, including in Holland, is too many people stayed quiet. Too many people did not protest.

You know, in the section in the book on liberation after they get off that train, I think the chapter is The Lost Train. And I mean, there's so many things in that chapter which are just incredible. One of them is then they're going around these, I think the Russian soldiers say, look, go and find some food here,

get some shelter here. And I think Hannah was talking about this idea that the Germans who they saw were looking at them with almost hatred. And she was confused as saying, why are you looking at us with hatred? Why not look at your government or the Nazis with hatred? You know, maybe can you just elaborate on that?

Yeah. It's quite striking to read that. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, they had been so indoctrinated that these Jews were parasites upon the nation, that they were the danger, that they were, you know, taking over the country. And they had forgotten that they were people. And even if they saw them coming off of the train,

this train that was liberated by the Russians in the end, and, you know. And then they really looked so bad. They were skeletal. I mean, you know, he had. They looked like going to die on the spot. Yeah. I mean, they're basically like sort of walking living skeletons. Yeah, she was 30 kilos when she came out. Exactly.

It's incredible. This reminds me of something Edith Ego also said to me in the conversation with her. And I think it kind of speaks to these themes. I think she was referring to someone else, but she said, when a lie gets repeated enough times, it becomes true. It becomes the truth, right? And it kind of speaks to this.

Right, right. And I think they, yeah, I mean, it is an incredible image when you think of it. You know, like here they are, they had been sort of protected in their homes in Germany and they had been, you know, this is a farming village that they came to. Their pantries were stocked with food. They were fine, right? But I don't

know if it triggered some sort of guilt in them as well that they suddenly saw these Jews that they'd seen as these some sort of like interlopers and dangerous figures. And now like in this looking as weak as possible, you know, as weak and sort of, and I wonder if in some ways it pricked their conscience in some ways, I don't know. There's also this section again in this chapter on liberation, where I think her and someone called Robert from the train go into a house and there's a German mother with her baby and they've got, I think, cheese and jam and meat. And the German lady, I think, maybe quite scared at seeing what they're going to do to it. So he's like, please, this is all the food I have for me and my baby. And Robert and Hannah left it, even though they were starving,

even though they'd been on a train, I think for 13 days, right? This lost train, they didn't know where they were going, like they didn't even believe they were free. They didn't get any food. They still didn't take it. And I thought that theme of humanity comes through. It's like, wow, wow, you still didn't take it

when you were literally starving. You're weighing only 30 kilos. You have every right, most people would say, to feel bitter if you wanted to and to take that food when they're probably well-fed anyway. That was incredible. The other incredible thing was this cruel irony where people who had survived the concentration camps, survived the train journey, and they were so excited to see the foods, they ended up dying from gorging on the foods. Like, I just couldn't get my head around that. What?

Just a cruel irony. They were starving and they saw all this food and they just ate it and they died immediately. Yeah. And Hannah actually explains, we were lucky the house we went to didn't actually, they didn't have much. So we, there wasn't the risk there of gorging

and killing ourselves on food. She was lucky. But you asked me earlier about like, one of the things that changed me writing this book. I feel like I look at food really differently now. You know, when I see, when I have children that are about the same age as actually as Hannah was during the course of the story, 13 and 15 year old children, and they often leave food on their plate. I really have a hard time throwing it away. You know, I really have a hard time, you know, not sort of packing it up for leftovers or gobbling it down myself i haven't all my life people from the holocaust cannot throw food i wanted to talk about

particularly with you ruthie i guess was this relationship with foods because having been in a concentration camp and having food rationed, if you can even call it that, what then happens to how you view food? You didn't have it. You'd literally eat anything that was given to you. How does that then change you as a person? Maybe explain to us what was your mother's relationship with food like and how were you brought up around food? First of all, we would not throw food. Food, you never...

You don't throw food. You have to finish. But I know that a lot of people from the Holocaust, they would give their children to eat and to eat and to eat. Now we know that we don't have to eat too much. Yeah. But my mother, she really was normal with it. One of her fantasies, though, of course, throughout the war, you talked about imagination before. Sorry. You know, she talked about like and a lot of times people in the barracks would talk about food and they'd go through preparing elaborate meals in their mind and they would talk about the recipes and what this and that.

And she didn't have much patience for that. But what she did think about constantly was a toasted egg with butter and a poached egg. And hot chocolate. And hot chocolate as well. But that's what sort of sustained her was that. And a clean bed with clean sheets. My aunt Gabi, she's crazy with cleaning. She's crazy with cleaning. Why do you think that is? Because of the Holocaust, because all her childhood was with dirtiness. Everything was dirty. I mean, imagine in that train, for example, just the level of filth that

they descended into. I mean, they were in this train for example, just the level of filth that they descended into. Oh, this killer. Yeah. I mean, they were in this train that was meandering through the German countryside just in the very last days of the war, dodging bombs and whatnot. And at one point, the man who was very sick next to her in the train had some sort of diarrhea. And he basically collected his—I don his i had to say this politely but he had he had a bowl basically uh where he was sort of collecting his own refuse and it spilled on top of han on her dress made her crazy and she was completely and she tried her best to keep that clean and try to keep the blanket so basically diarrhea all over her and there's nothing you can do this day. After 10 days that you don't eat and don't clean yourself.

So anyway, her sister, you know, who was so little and has very, claims to have no memory of her time in Bergen-Belsen, in the concentration camp and no memory of the train. She must have some sort of very visceral memories because she is to this day like an OCD level cleaner of her home. she is to this day like an OCD level cleaner of her home. When I went to interview her at her house, which was spotless, she told me when I remarked on how sparkling clean her home was, she says, I've been trying to clean up from the filth of the Nazis

ever since we came out of the camps. And she's now in her 80s. 82. Yeah. She's still cleaning. And what's so striking when I hear that, we know from the medical science that early years are important. But Hannah went into the camps when she was 13, 14, 14 years old. Okay. So

although it's early, it's not as early as Gabby. So those years we know nought to three, nought to seven are formative. So much of who we are and how we think and our behaviors are laid down or strongly influenced by those times. So it's interesting just hearing this, that actually Gabby was so little and she's got no conscious memory, but her whole behaviors are basically showing that there is a memory, as you say, a visceral memory. I think all the psychologists can throw all their theories when they see Gabi, because Gabi had really a very bad childhood and was evil and all this torture. But she grew to be is torture but she grew to be such a good human being all her life she is doing good she's volunteering she's working she was a very good teacher with the very hard children with a lot of difficulties yeah she was the teacher for these children and And then she had for old women, for old people, like a club that she was taking care of them,

that we would laugh in the family and we'll say, oh, we would love to be old people in her club. And now she's all the time volunteering with Alzheimer. She's going, even in the Corona, she went to people with Alzheimer and she's making with a flute and she's singing for them and she's talking to them. She's, and then she was volunteering in hospitals

to bring food to the people that are waiting for the ill people. And for everybody, you know, she would come with good things, with chocolate and whatever. But for years, she's only doing good. And I say, wow, what happened from a child that saw only evil in the very, very significant years. What was the relationship like between Hannah and Gabi? I read that passage from the book, clearly showing how close and how much they would have bonded in the concentration camps.

But when they are free, when they've made their new life in Israel, their mothers, their grandmothers, what was their relationship like? Yeah, they were very, very close. People can be close. Siblings can be close for sure. One might imagine after such an intense experience, there would be, not that you can compare these things, but a closeness almost on a different level. Did you detect that, that there was something about that bond, which was, this is

more than just a regular sisterly bond? Yeah. I mean, I think also their bond, I mean, Hannah basically became a surrogate mother for Gabi, even before they were arrested and deported because the mother dies in childbirth. So she's instantly, the father's overwhelmed, the grandparents are old, or she becomes sort of like the caregiver of her little sister. And there's actually a photo of her before the war in a sandbox sitting next to her sister. And she looks sort of, she's 14, but she also, she has, she looks like a mother. I think it's hard to put, it's hard to put into words, but she just has that like look of responsibility and love in her eye already, even before she's, you know, in the camps with her. I think there, there was a little bit of tension, you know, in the camps with her. I think there was a little bit

of tension, you know, after the war, this sort of relates back to your story about connection to food. They're in Switzerland after the war, recovering, both of them. And Gabi is put into an orphanage. And the orphan, people run the orphanage mean well, but they know nothing about children in trauma. They know nothing about children who come out of a concentration camp. And Gabby, who wasn't the best eater even before she was deported, she would sometimes throw up her food. And as a quote unquote punishment for this, the people of the orphanage made her eat the food she had just thrown up. And that traumatized her even further. So there was just, again, there was no... No understanding the children that came from the Holocaust and went to orphanage.

Yeah. And then when she rejoins, when she ends up, they both end up in Israel in the early years of the state. But at this point, Hannah has gotten engaged and gotten married. And she sort of starts her new life with her husband, who is Ruchi's father. And Hannah and Gabi is adopted by another family. And I think there was this, because they were so close and so intertwined, I think Gabi felt a little, you know, sort of, I don't know, baffled or confused that she was not going to be living in their home with them.

Yeah, I can believe that. Because my mother was learning all the day in the hospital, you know, in hospital, you have not to be at night, at daytime. So she couldn't be at home. Yeah. So then she went to a very good family. Yeah. You know, this, this relationship to food is fascinating. This sort of question is two parts. One part is relating to what I've just said about, do you know other Holocaust survivors, other concentration camp survivors and what their relationship with food is like? And then I guess related to that is this wider question that we all like to be around people, at least from time to time, who've had similar experiences to us. Because you know, they know what you've been through, you know what they've been through.

So the second part of this question is, would your mother, would Hannah, want to get together with other survivors? Or is it something you don't want to talk about? I don't want to see other survivors, I want to get on with my life. You know, do you understand what I'm getting at? Yeah, I would say she was quite normal. She would go with everybody. She would talk with everybody. She was so open to know new things, to know new people. She was very open, very spontaneous. You know, as did Anna, I think very much so.

And you feel that when you read the diary, you feel that. But she also, I think this appetite for life and always, you know, she said sort of being up for anything, but to your question about food, I think other survivors, you hear a lot about survivors who would hoard food. And I think also, yes, this idea of not never throwing anything away.

And I see that even my mother's own family, who was a refugee family, who never threw things away. I mean, Hannah did have friends, including fellow Dutch friends who come over to, to Israel after the war that she spent time with.

And she, but, and then she, but what's interesting to me is that sometimes she would, there were other Bergen-Belsen survivors, including she worked with a doctor who was a survivor from Bergen-Belsen. She told me there was a neighbor

in your, in that very, in your comment, who was also from Bergen-Belsen, but they didn't really talk about it very much. They didn't really, I think, you know, now we would think there'd be support groups or some sort of way to kind of come around around the trauma together.

There were a lot of survivors, just they were in the ether, they were there, but you didn't necessarily know their backstories. More than half of Israel was survivors. They didn't talk for years of what they had gone through those early years were very much about like okay one foot one foot for the other we have to marry we have to create new families we have to we have to create careers i mean she didn't she was always very worried about money when she first came because she was an orphan she didn't have any money interesting mr frank

tried to help her out you know this is anna's dad and his father yeah auto frank um helped her out with some money um originally with and always made sure to sort of and she had an aunt and an aunt and an uncle in the states who also you know were there sort of for moral support and also i guess financial support if she if she really needed it but she um you know she was sort of starting from scratch yeah there's there's two things about her her sort of life in israel which i guess they seem like almost trivial things but they really stood out to me one is that you said the cold never left her and the way you write about it in the book or the way it's written is that even on a hot, boiling summer's day, she would still have a cardigan on.

And that was really striking also that she would give all of her, I think, grandchildren or great-grandchildren the gift of a particular quilt. She gave all of them a... She never wanted... A pooch. It's an Eiderdown quilt.

She wanted to make sure they would never experience a smidgen of the cold, the terrible, gnawing cold. She gave all the grandchildren blankets, good blankets. There's two clear things which I'm sure there'll be much more in her adult life that was influenced by this experience. But one of them is not wanting everyone to be cold. Anyone that she loves. I'm sure there'll be much more in her adult life that was influenced by this experience. But one of them is not wanting everyone to be cold. Anyone that she loves, I don't want this to be cold or hungry, and we're not going to waste any foods. Which of course makes complete logical

sense, doesn't it? And just also, the one book she had throughout the entire time she was imprisoned was a biography of Florence Nightingale, the first registered nurse. And that is a book she paged through, you know, the entire, repaged and paged through and reread many times over. And indeed she was, you know, she basically was her sister's nurse in a way, you know, and she was a caregiver and she becomes a nurse after the war. And after, in her early years in Israel, she becomes a nurse. And who does she work with? Children, young children. I mean, she described to me when she first was in Jerusalem

and somewhere near the old city and she saw children, I think they were young Palestinian children. And she saw some of them, you know, running noses and didn't have enough money and it hurt her heart. Like all these years later, there were certain images of children suffering.

She couldn't stand the sight of children suffering. And who did she work with for a good many years? She worked with immigrant children. And although she herself was a brand new immigrant, relatively, she was teaching the newer, even more brand new immigrants from other parts of the world. Yeah. Can I just touch on gratitude and appreciation for life? Now, I'm so interested and curious as to what Hannah's approach to life was with respect to gratitude or things not going her way. From your time with her, did you notice anything about gratitude and appreciation? Was there something there that was like, yeah, I can see that? Or was it not that obvious? I think it was pretty obvious. I think there was sort of this heightened appreciation for very small things. Like when I would bring her like tulips or she would share

with me her favorite chocolates. I mean, she really, really liked the chocolates, you know, and she would talk about the chocolate and the chocolate cookie. Like it was just, again, this sort of like heightened appreciation and awareness for small and big. I think most of all, she appreciated her family. She was incredibly close with her three children and her grandchildren and now her great-grandchildren, the house was always brimming with a different relative or combinations of family members. You know, the way so many people in the West, they grow older alone. That was not the case for Hannah. And I think she really sort of thrived being the head of this incredibly large, bustling,

loving brood. She was admired by all my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. She was the big mama. Oh, I mean, I love that phrase, a heightened appreciation for the small things. And I remember from the book, her and Gabby saying that all these great grandchildren, how many is it? More than 30. More than 30 great- great grandchildren was their greatest revenge and gabby has something around this number of grandchildren you know before the great grandchildren wow just absolutely incredible good families big families and all of them so good, so willing to do good. This is what I say, psychologists cannot

explain that after what they have gone through. And I think I feel so steeped in the story of the family life back in Berlin and Amsterdam. And I know that her father and her mother very much wanted to have a large family and very much really loved the idea of family life. And to see like a couple of generations later, there's a lot of descendants. How would she deal with stress when things happen in life that I guess you wouldn't want? And I guess, you know, where's my thing?

My thinking is that in, you know, the concentration camp was stress on a different planet, right? The sort of stress most of us will never, ever have to experience, but yet you manage it and you get through it. So therefore, how do you then manage? I have to. Yeah, please. I lost my husband 26 years ago.

And my mother was the only one that really functioned on that time. This I remember. She said, now we have to do this. You go here and you do that. She was the only one that was functioning. But maybe it's also the education in Germany. You are very much, you cannot say, oh, now I am mourning, so I'm not doing so-and-so.

No, no. You have to be a human being and to do what you have to do, no matter what happens to you. But I think it speaks to this sort of, I mean, unfortunate education she had in the concentration camps, which is chaos is swirling around you, but you kind of have to keep focused on the task at hand. In the concentration camp, the task at hand was staying alive and keeping her sister alive. And the task at hand was Ruthie concentration camp, the task at hand was staying alive and keeping her sister alive.

And the task at hand when Ruthie's husband suddenly died in a car accident, leaving her a widow with eight young children was how do I get things together? How do I be the solid pillar of support? And even before the concentration camp, when her mom dies after giving birth- On the spot, she became a mom.

She became a mom. She has to deal with it, deal with the grief, deal with the fact that the walls are closing in. So it's interesting that when you can manage and get through those stresses, I guess you can get through anything. I would have loved to have met your mother. I really would have.

I feel like I know her from reading the book. I really do. You know what she would have said about you? She would have called you a mensch. A mensch is a Yiddish word that means a human being. And it's sort of the highest accolade you can give somebody if they're a mensch, if they're a good person. Well, that's, yeah, I really would have loved to meet her. Hey, look, I could talk about Hannah's story, this book for hours. It's had a profound impact on me. It really has. And I really hope everyone listening picks it up and reads it because it's beautiful,

it's life affirming, it's heartbreaking, it's tragic, but it's a human story. It's a real human story. This happened, This could happen again, right? So we need to hear these stories. We need to embody them. We need to think about our own actions in the world. Where are we contributing to bigotry or hatred? Where are we contributing with our words and our language to prejudice? And to make the world a better place.

Yeah. And so what can we do in our own mini worlds, in our own communities that embodies these qualities of kindness, of compassion, of treating everyone the same? I mean, I've said it before, I'll say it again,

the number one thing I teach my kids is about how they treat other people. I literally this week said, I don't care about your grades. What I care about is that you treat every single person you come across with respect. It doesn't matter who they are. And reading this book affirms to me that that's the right thing. That is the most important message to teach my children. To finish off then, and I'll go to you both individually. Ruthie, if I could start with you. To finish off then, and I'll go to you both individually, Ruthie, if I could start with you. To finish off, this podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our lives. You are one of Hannah's children you know her story inside out

what final words of wisdom would you give to my audience what's important to be a good human being just to do good to other people is what I learned from my mother and from my aunt. Just to do good. And you can fill all of your life with doing good to other people. And it makes you so happy. And Dina, if I put that question to you, what would you say? I mean, Hannah used to close her remarks to children and to others she spoke to using the words of her own religion saying, you know, we are all created in the image of God. We are all created in the image of God. So I would want to, in her name, repeat that wisdom as well. But I would add to it to speak out when people are not treating other people like they are in the image of God as well. But I would add to it to speak out when people are not treating other people like they

are in the image of God as well. I guess if I could just add one more thing for my little answer your question before is, you know, you asked, if it brings us back to the very first question you asked about sort of what changed in living and breathing Hannah's story sort of in real time, the idea that things can change very quickly and just that we all have to be very vigilant to make sure that we're good to each other. Yeah. She sounds like the most incredible lady. I wish I'd had a chance to meet her, but I'm delighted I got a chance to meet both of you. It's a wonderful book. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you so much. to meet both of you. It's a wonderful book. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you so much.

Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. As always, do think about one thing that you can take away and start applying into your own life. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday Five. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say say in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. So if that sounds like something you would like to receive each and every Friday, you can sign up for free at drchatterjee.com forward slash Friday five. Now, if you are new to my podcast,

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