The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – A Thousand Kisses: A Family’s Escape From the Nazis to a New Life by John W. Weiser

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

A Thousand Kisses: A Family’s Escape From the Nazis to a New Life by John W. Weiser https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Kisses-Familys-Escape-Nazis/dp/1978318073 Intimate and harrowing, this memoir of love, escape and redemption is a rich account of the Weiser family’s life and flight from Nazi Vienna to Hungary to Brazil and to the U.S. It will keep the reader glued to a narrative that skillfully recreates the palpable tension of multiple escapes. A Thousand Kisses is at once instructive about a family’s courage and determination to stay together and about the dangers of remaining silent while a government tightens immigration laws and promotes racial scapegoating.

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Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Good folks, Voss here from thecrisvoss Show.com. There you go, ladies to you know, and a least thing to that makes an official. Welcome to 16 years, 2,800 episodes of the Chris Voss, and we're starting to get ready to click over to 2,900 episodes. So we're just having fun with all that and doing all the things.

Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss show. Some guests of the show may by advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we have an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking to him about his books. We had him on yesterday to talk about one of his other books. And the book we'll be talking to him is an amazing story that we touched on last time.

It is entitled A Thousand Kisses, A Family's Escape from the Nazis to a New Life out September 7th, 2017. Welcome the show. How are you, John? Fine, thank you. Very good. Thank you. And give us any dot com's websites, e-mail. Mills, where do you want people to get to know you better on the interwebs?

There is a website, www.johnwiser.com. I'm trying to get something plugged in here. Okay. Give us a 30,000 overview. What's this book is about? This book is about a situation of a family, happily living in Vienna, Austria, and all believing they're Catholic. and then Hitler came in their next Austria to be part of Germany.

Very soon thereafter, they began to apply the anti-Jewish laws that they had in Germany. And then to our surprise, my father got a letter from the authority saying they believed that he was a Jew. So there you had the government stamping him as a Jew. Even though it's Catholic. Wow. And they were closing the Nuson Jews. so he eventually escaped to Hungary where his mother lived, where he had been born. Then my mother in Vienna and my father in Hungary

were busy trying to get a visa to go to some country so we could enter and live there. And everybody that we wrote to turned us down. Finally, out of the blue, we got a tourist visa to go to Brazil. So we went to Brazil and lived there for a couple of years. And then finally, the war in Europe made it impossible for Europeans to leave. Yeah. The quarter in the United States opened up because there was nobody able to take advantage of the quota.

Our family was able to take advantage of the quota. Oh, wow. It comes to the United States in 1941. 1941. That was the early days of the war. and yeah I mean what a harrowing escape just in the title of the thing so were these the folks the hills are alive with music a sound of music movie was that I'm just teasing it was about the same time yes not the same time yeah it's really interesting your family was was Catholic and they

just decided to call him Jewish is did they maybe just mark everyone of religious face maybe Jewish or was that the thing or no in fact years later I discussed some documents that confirmed that my father's family was in fact Jewish. Oh, really? Yes. So that would make you Jewish. They had been baptized. When he came to Austria and married my mother, all our lives were Catholic lives.

But that was still in the background, that Jewish birth. Where does the story start out at? Give us a lay a foundation for us on where it begins. Well, it always starts for me when I'm playing in the park. I look up and I see Hitler up in the city hall of Vienna. And they have just marched into Austria, and he's there talking to the Austrian citizens, telling him how glad he is that they're now German. And most of them were very happy. They were delighted.

Really? They were, because it was a situation to make Austria great again. Oh, God. It's a variation on Laga. Yeah, really? Austria had been a large kingdom before the First World War, but it was on the side of the Germans in the First World War. And when they lost the war in the settlement after the war, Austria was broken up into a bunch of pieces. Part went to Czechoslovakia, part went to Romania, part went to Yugoslavia.

and what was left was a small appendix of a country. But that was Austria. That's where we lived. That was Austria for you. You know, that was you as a young child in Austria then, right? You were in. Wow. And you were healthy at that time?

I was, we left when I was six. Wow. So you're just a kid? You don't understand what's going on? You're just like, like, I'm worried and stressed and, and this seems what a time to live through. Wow, you actually saw it. It was a wonderful life in Vienna for us.

My grandparents owned a very popular restaurant in Vienna. My father was a successful doctor. We lived in a lovely apartment, and we were about a three-block walk from what's called the Folks Garden, the People's Garden, which was appended to the Habsburg Palace. So I was walking every morning with my mother and sister down to this beautiful garden,

all part of the old royal gardens. It's beautifully maintained, flowers, trees, lawns. It was a lovely place. Yeah, yeah. And the Nazis showed up and did the Nazi thing. When do you kind of start noticing as a child that things are off, that things are disturbed, and maybe your parents are,

concerned about things. The first thing we realized, of course, is that my father had left. He had escaped. And after a couple of weeks, my sister and I was sent to Hungary to stay with him and my Hungarian grandmother, because my mother was very busy trying to get all the necessary papers. First, the papers to leave Austria. And secondly, papers to try to get to some other country. and the Germans had a rule

all the Jews had to leave but the rule was they had to leave their money behind oh wow so you had to give a long assessment of everything you owned so they could be sure it was all still left when you went wow

and it's a little hard to travel if you don't have money that's right I've often wondered how my parents did that did you I guess you never asked them or found, did you interview him for your book or was it too late by the time you got around to writing the book? No, by the time I came around to writing the book,

they were both gone. But it was funny. We never talked about Austria. We never talked about our life they were leaving. We did talk about the relatives who were still there because when the war broke out

and the United States joined in the war, my parents would send care packages to the relatives in Europe. So I knew there were people back there, and I knew that we were trying to help them. But we never talked about the fact that my father was considered Jewish by the Nazis. Wow. We never talked about any of that. You know, we've had people on the show, and I think we did have one historian that talked

about this aspect of Jews who were caught up in the World War II, and they eventually moved to Israel and set up their new lives there after the war. And one of the things that she studied and talked about in research was how so many people from that era that lived through that experience of World War II and the horrors of even the camps and stuff, and they survived the camps, they didn't want to talk about it when it was over. It was like they just wanted to put up behind them the horror

and they just wanted to get back to a normal life. And so a lot of Jewish people were like that. They just didn't talk about it. In fact, a lot of soldiers didn't talk about it either. You know, they just, everybody just want to get back to normal. And, you know, raise your family, love your kids, and work a job. And, you know, try and probably forget the horrors that they saw in the camps. It's quite interesting because, you know, nowadays everybody talks about everything.

I mean, I have a podcast that I can blather about just about anything and do. But it's interesting. One of my children made a comment to me. that told me he had no idea what was back in Europe and what our family's history had been. So I decided I would write something for my children so that they'd know what their grandparents had done and what had happened to the family. Yeah. We stay in close contact with my cousins in Europe.

They come to visit us in the United States. We host them. And I've sometimes gone back to Vienna. to visit. Yeah. Yeah. So you have gone back there. Have you made relatives or senior original house that you grew up in?

Oh, yes. Yes. What was that like? Tell me about it. It was wonderful. It was great to look up at the apartment. We had this lovely sunny apartment on the second floor. It was a large apartment because part of it was my father's medical office.

And there was this very nice location where we were only a few blocks from this beautiful Park. Unfortunately, my grandparents' restaurant was sold after the war. Oh, really? Insurance company, which tore it down and put a, what I consider a really ugly building. But there you are. That's progress. Now, I'm getting a little bit of either growling or maybe a dog napping or something in the background, some snoring. I'm getting some sound that's coming in. Okay. I think that was my foot rubbing again.

Oh, okay. It sounded like a little puppy snoring or something. What a thing to be able to go back and see. You know, it is interesting. There's social media accounts that what they do is they take pictures of what the houses look like that were bombed out or, you know, semi-destroyed or, you know, they clearly were part of the war. And sometimes the Nazis are there in the tanks or sometimes the Americans. But, you know, they'll show a house that's kind of maybe 10% of it got blown up. or roof got blown in.

And they show what it looks like today. And they do this side-by-side comparison. And it's really fun to look at because you're like, wow, that's still pretty much the same house. They rebuilt it almost. And that house is still standing now. I mean, World War I ended in 1945. So we're in 2025, we'll call it.

So we'll say, long time. There's an easy math right there. 80 years. 80 years. Wow. It's a long time. 81. And in the see those, you know, I'm still standing and, you know, and it's kind of a, I think it's kind of a monument to the endurance and hope of the human spirit.

Absolutely. Rebuild and, and try and build a better world and stuff. Do you see a lot of parallels in the MAGA movement and what's going on with, you know, make a great America great? I mean, all these slogans are stolen from the, from Hitler and Goebbels and stuff like that. It was interesting. I had a number of people to. reviewed the book, and one of them was the president of a university here. He noted that the way I started the book with Hitler, he's the one who pointed out the parallel to the Maga movement, that is, make Austria great, make America great again. People do want to live in a country

they can be proud of. Yeah. And it represents good morals and ethics and good you know, what's that old the golden rule? Right. You know, be good to others. So you can, you know, I, you know, it's, it's pretty simple in life, you know. I mean, unless you want roving bands of marauders and people killing and pillaging and all that crazy stuff they did in the dark ages, you know, if you want a good society, good society, you know, you got to be nice to each other. That's right.

Yeah. Love is the solution. Love is always the solution, I think, sometimes. Although sometimes choking someone out that I hate might feel better, the judge says, I can't do that anymore. So you take this journey. Did you come over by boat? Yes, we went by boat from actually from Yugoslavia, from Trieste to Brazil. We lived in Brazil for a couple of years, and then we took a boat from Brazil up to the United States.

It was a cargo ship that made stops at various ports along the way. One of the interesting things is we got to Venezuela, and they wouldn't let us off the ship because they were afraid we were German spies. Holy crap. You're running for your lives. Right. And hear this. I mean, that's just extraordinary.

I remember, sadly, there was a famous story. There was a ship of Jews that came in to New York. and they wouldn't let them offload, and they send them back to their death in Europe. Many of them died. And it's just really sad times in there, and the nationalism. And we see that today, the nationalism, where it's, we don't want other people here. And, you know, it really irritates me that for eons of time, politicians have always pointed the finger at the other, will they steal from their constituents?

You know, person stealing from you, look over there as they pick your pocket. And it's always the immigrant stranger, that one you should be afraid of, when really they should be afraid of the politician who's pitching that crap. And, yeah. We had a lot of letters from people. I remember the Canadian fellow writing my father saying, we can't let you in because then we'd have to let a lot of other people in and it would destroy the balance of our population. Wow. You come here and your parents never told you a story. So did you have to put this together on yourself, maybe with relatives and piecing it together and maybe some, I don't know, data they left behind, newspapers or anything like that?

Well, it was very interesting. My mother had lived in the same apartment in Manhattan where my father had his practice and where I grew up. and she died when she was 92, and we went back to the apartment to clean it up so we could give it back to the landlord. And as I was going through the closets, I found this sack, a cloth sack, and I took it home, opened it up, and it was full of letters. Letters that they had been carrying around since 1938. this was now 1990 something but they kept these letters and I keep thinking

she kept hoping that somebody would find them and do something with them I took the letters and I tried to translate to myself that took too long so I hired some translators to translate the letters and what you find is there are a lot of translators out there and some are only about a day ahead of you

they're using dictionaries as they translate but then there was some other very good guys who did a very good job for me and i put those letters together and they told this beautiful story of really a love story between my parents as they supported each other one in austrian one in hungary trying to keep each other's spirits up as they were struggling trying to get a way out there was a beautiful exercise. I was very glad to do that for my kids. And, you know, telling the story, I mean, the important things about these stories is changing how things hopefully affecting the future to make sure people are aware of it and they don't do things again. But as Chris Voss quotes on the Chris Voss show, one thing man can learn from his history

is the man never learns from his history. And thereby we go round and around. And we seem like we're in an 80-year cycle right now. And I mean, we have people literally quoting Hitler and global speeches in our White House. And white nationalism is rebranded KKK, if you're very familiar with it. That's all it is. And KKKism is basically Nazism. Scary. Yeah.

So do you, do you, are you concerned? Do you feel fear or have you lived your life and you're like, whatever, you know, it's, I mean, it's not like we're going to send you into war at your age. No, no. I'm in my 90s. I'm okay. We'll give you a big bazook. A lot of kids and a lot of grandkids, and I certainly would like them to lead a happy life, undisturbed by violence or by war.

I'm really scared what's happening today that we start wars without thinking very much about how we're going to stop them. It's not a good idea. Let's see here. What else do you, what do you hope people come away with when they read the book? Do you hope that they, let me all let you say it. I think what I hope is that they understand. understand how difficult and how short-sighted governments can be that they would keep people out who really need help, who are here to help, or here to work and earn their living.

They're not coming here to live off the state, but they really do need support because back home, somebody's trying to kill them. And in the end, he killed a lot of them. really said the story told of the ship that came full of Jews to the United States hoping to be rescued and were sent back to their death because somehow

we couldn't accept a couple of hundred Jews Yeah The yeah it's just It's crazy so when you guys Offboarded you guys eventually offboarded in in Venezuela

Oh yeah in New York So they wouldn't let you off in Venezuela So the ship went to New York? The ship was ultimately going to New York, and our destination was New York. Okay. There was just a stop in Venezuela to unload some cargo, take on new cargo, and the passengers, there were only a few passengers on the ship, was primarily a freight carrier,

but the passengers were allowed to visit locally, except we were not allowed off the ship because they feared we might spy on them. Wow. That is crazy, man. It's crazy, wacky stuff. Yes. That it really is. So let's see.

Do you see writing any further books about this or maybe about the other parts of your family and relatives you stayed in touch with? I don't think so. I've started to write a book on civics because I think that's an important subject. Oh, yeah. My kids persuaded me to stop that and write a book about what I believe. So I'm doing that now. But that gets into religion. And it's probably going to be a more personal book, but we'll see.

Now, we talked about your other two books. Some people catch one show, but they don't catch the others. We have you on three times again next week for your third book. Tell me the other two books that you have. The first of the other two books we'll talk about next week. It's an overview of the life of a remarkable man, Bishop William Swing, It was for 26 years, the Episcopal Bishop of California. And he was a very brave guy, did a lot of things that other people wouldn't touch.

For example, when San Francisco was going through the AIDS crisis, everybody stayed away from it. It was like the plague. You didn't want to go there for fear you might catch it. Yeah. But he went there, and he went right into the middle of the, of the, of the, area where the homosexual group lived and he talked to them and tried to understand them and then began to do things to help them and bring what, as he considered, bring Christianity to them since they were in many cases shunned by their churches.

Oh, wow. So he did that. Then later, he was asked as Bishop of San Francisco whether he would host. religious leaders in connection with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. United Nations Charter had been signed in San Francisco in 1945. In 1995, they wanted to have a 50th celebration. So they didn't ask him if he would host religious leaders. So he said he would.

I'm thinking, he said, you know, if the nations of the world have a United Nations, where they can talk to each other, shouldn't there be a united religions where the religions of the world can talk to each other? That seems like that would be a good idea. Yeah, so he tried. He went around, took a sabbatical, went around the world,

meaning religious leaders everywhere. And the unfortunate answer for most of them was not interested. Really? But as he was going around, he was doing a lot of lecturing and talking. And what he found was that ordinary people, the people in the street were very excited about the idea of religions working together. Yeah. Ultimately, what came out of it was something called the United Religions Initiative, which is today the largest interfaith organization in the world.

So he's had a wonderful job. Oh, wow. It consists of small groups called cooperation. circles, a minimum of seven people. Each circle has to have representatives of three different religions, and they pick what they want to do in their locality, some tasks they think needs to be done, and they have to raise their own money, and they have to run themselves. But they belong to this larger organization where they can get help from other people who are doing the same thing.

He had moral support. Once in a while, somebody comes and gives them some training. But it has the potential to really change the way people look at each other and avoid religious violence. Very good. And some of the horrors we still have. That was one. The other thing, then he did a bunch of other stuff when the, I figure what happened,

something was happening with housing. And so he got black members of his. community together. They eventually found that a development bank that provided money to black businesses so they could get on with their lives and prosper. That's wonderful. And so we'll get into that book next week, I believe. Yes. And the book we talked about yesterday was, throwing your nest egg. Throwing your nest egg. The primar on investments for my children, grandchildren, and other young adults. And the idea is that all of our children, most of our children, are going to be working for companies

that do not have retirement plans or pension plans. So they have to save for their own retirement. The government helps them by allowing IRAs and 401K plans so you can compound tax-free. Finally get tax free, you take the money out. But in the meantime, you've had a benefit. The kids need to do that because they're going to be living for 20 or 25 years after they retire and nobody's going to support them except themselves. So I got into this, I started thinking I'll teach them what I do. Then I realized as I looked at what Warren Buffett did, Peter Lynch, and some other very good investors, it's a lot of work.

Most of us take the shortcut. We hire advisors. who tells you should buy A or buy B. And half the time they're right and half the time they're wrong. So you think about eventually, I was persuaded that the safest thing to do is to invest in the market at large through an index fund, which tracks the way the market is moving. And my experience has been that I've now been investing for a 50 years.

And the amount of money I put in is the same of money I still have. But in the meantime, I've been living off the earnings for 50 years. Wow. So it's not a bad situation. Yeah, that's a good. I hope to get my grandkids into. Yeah. And so people can watch that episode.

We put it out. It's not quite public yet, but we recorded yesterday. It should be out in about three to five days from this one. And they can check that out or that book. So as we go out, give people the final pitch out to, order of this book that you wrote about your family, et cetera, et cetera. I think I would like people to read the book just to see an example of one family went through because of the horror of what the Nazis were doing where they sort of blacklisted a whole

crowd of people and said these are not acceptable people get rid of them or eventually kill them. And so people fleeing for their lives and finding it, very difficult to get accepted anywhere. We were sort of fortunate to fall into two things, a tourist visa in Brazil, and later a war that allowed us to use an unused quota in the United States. Wow. But it's a lesson for everybody.

There's also another underlying lesson, which is the power of love for my parents to support each other through some very difficult times and because they loved each other and supported each other, they managed with very limited resources and children to feed, to come out, land on their feet, and have a happy life at the end. Yeah. That's wonderful.

What a great, I mean, beautiful story of the ending of trials and tribulations and things that people go through. So with all of these things, it's quite a journey and things that we go through through life. and hopefully some people learn for the parallels of what's going on now to what's going on. Let's hope. And the horrors that took place and the horrors that may be pending coming up. So thank you, John, for coming on the show.

We really appreciate it. Chris, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you very much. You too as well. Folks, order up his book, wherever fine books are sold. A thousand kisses of families escape from the Nazis to a new life. Thanks for monies for tuning in. Go to goodrease.com, Fortressch, Chris Foss.

LinkedIn.com for Chess Chris Foss. Chris Foss 1 on the TikTok and all those crazy places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult the doctor for any resulting brain lead. All right, John, that has us out.