The Eric Metaxas Show - Jack Wurfl  (Encore)

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Holocaust Survivor Jack Wurfl  tell his story in "My Two Lives"

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Do you check your bucket list lately? Are you ready to take care of item number seven? Listening to the Eric Metaxe show? Well, welcome. Tune in and then move on to item number eight, skydiving with Chuck Schumer and AOC. Here now is Mr. Completed Mind. bucket list at age 12, Eric Matt, Texas. Folks, I don't know what day today is, to be perfectly honest, because I'm traveling.

It's confusing. But Albin and I would often do Fun Facts Friday on Fridays. And it was always so much fun. I don't care what day it is. I want to do Fun Facts Friday every day of the week. So, Albin, do you have any fun facts? That's the key. You have to have fun facts.

Yeah, it's great to be back with you, Eric, talking about Fun Facts Friday. no matter what day or the weekend it is. It's just like Shannon Breen says. It's friday whenever there's Fun Facts Friday. So, but you know how we used to begin it. I mean, we haven't done one for like about two years, but we used to begin it with the song, the Fun Facts Friday song. So I've got to officially open it with the Fun Facts Friday song.

So if you don't mind. Would you do that? Because it's been a while. Yes. And I don't even remember. Go ahead. Please. Okay.

me, me, me, me, me. And I've got the up hillbottal pastinette here. I don't hear any canstinets. Do you hear it? No, I don't hear anything. Wow, that's really something. Okay, well, here, I'll try it in there. Yeah, let me just start singing because we've got to get this thing going.

Come on and have some fun just for the fun of it. Tune into Eric Show, and you'll be in the know. you may learn something new and something untrue to fun fun fun fun fun facts like Friday Friday's here wow wow I can't believe it's been a long time since I heard that song yeah oh my gosh you album I forgot I forgot the lyrics I forgot the whole I mean okay it got to it got the 26 on the Billboard top 100. So what are you going to do, right? Right, except there was no category. That's right. So, okay, so what are the fun facts?

Fun facts, these and gentlemen, they're facts and they're fun. So what are some of these fun facts? Okay. This first one is a question. And believe it or not, I got this from a jumble puzzle from about five or six days back, okay? Is the center of the earth, okay, the core of the Earth. What do you think, Eric? Is it as hot as hotter than or cooler than the surface of the sun, the core of the earth? You know something, you know me. I love questions like that. And I, my instinct tells me that the answer is it is hotter than the surface of the sun. I don't know if that's right, but that's my, that's the answer I would put on the test. According to the

creators of Jumble and you know what scientists, these guys, are, they said it's exactly the same degrees, the same temperature, which is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, surface of the sun or the earth. Now, I think that's kind of interesting because is atheism dead and all those scientific facts you have in that book? And I bet you it matches something along the lines of the moon's distance from the earth and the earth's core and the sun's heat. You know, I think it's part of that existence of God kind of truism. the idea that that's true, that the surface of the sun is the same temperature as the center of the earth, that's at least extremely interesting.

Yeah. I need to know more to see whether it rises to the level of like, whoo, that looks like God's design. I mean, everything points to God's design, but sometimes it's obvious. But look, that's just an interesting fact. I would not have known that. Yeah, and I wonder if Stephen Meyer or Dr. James Tour would have a comment on that. Okay, by the way, here's another fun fact that kind of dovetails off of that.

If you were to fall through the crust of the earth and kept falling to the core of the center, the very center of the earth, it would take you, it would take you 19 minutes, 19 minutes to fall all the way. That's how far the distance is. And if you- Hold on a second. Hold on, because this is very typical of you, Al, but it's delightful and frustrating at the same time. part of the frustration is delightful and part of the delight is the frustration. So let's clear this up. Let's say there's a hole in the earth, a hole all the way down and I can fall toward the center of the earth. Yes. So we know that the diameter of the earth is about 8,000 miles across. So

I'm falling 4,000 miles. Okay. Terminal velocity is what? what, 130 miles an hour or something like that? I don't know. But you're telling me that to, that does, actually, that doesn't make sense that it would take 19 minutes. Yeah, you know, it's funny because I kind of went to several websites. One of them was National Geographic. One of them was, believe it or not, the Today Show.

And I was getting their, you know, bits and pieces of their fun facts. And I'm not sure exactly where I got this one. To travel 4,000 miles. I mean, to, from where we're sitting. Yeah. to the center of the earth is, unless I'm having one of those, like, moments, I mean, it's about, yeah, it's about 4,000 miles. Yeah, it's travel 4,000 miles. If I was going to be the speed of a jet plane, that's going to take me, you know, eight hours. Well, they're like, okay, but you, okay,

you must have a few rocks in your pocket. That's all I can say. I mean, I'm just trying to figure, I'm just trying to figure this one out. I don't know where you got that from. That's so confusing to me. I feel like I'm missing something. Maybe somebody can write in us at the website and clarify this. Yeah, because it is a math question. It's like a, it's like, and this is from my book obvious, but in my book obvious,

I have a thing where people talk about there's too many people on the planet. There's 8 billion people on the planet. But if you do the math, and I have done the math two or three times, and my twin brother, who actually told me about this fact, did the math, if you take, take every, person in the world, 8 billion people, and you gave them a 20 by 20 foot by 20 foot square foot, you know, space to stand in, you could put all 8 billion people into the state of New Mexico. And that is absolutely true. If you do the math.

That I have heard. I think I've heard that before. Yes. So when people say too many people, too many people on the planet, they could all fit in New Mexico. And this is not even them living on top of each other in high-rise apartments, okay, like New York. City, for example. But that's a, that you can find in my book obvious. But that, so, okay, but somebody might write in about that math question because that is

basically a math question. Here's another math question, too, and this is another quirky one, but again, I got it from both National Geographic and the Today Show. All of the blood in your body travels through your body once a minute. Once a minute, all the blood just travels all the way through your body, which I I find really amazing, especially when you find out, and this is the second part of it, the circulatory system in a person's body is 60,000 miles long, 60,000 miles long, with all the little veins and all the little bith and that.

I guess they have to be including capillaries, but that's mind blown. All the blood that's in your right. And I'll tell you, I know that to be true because I spent the summer of 19. 1986 driving all of that. Wow. That's impressive. Very few people have driven the circulatory system in their own bodies. And those who have typically would not admit it on this or any other program.

So thank you for being brave. You're welcome. But I had one of those passes, so I was able to go through the tunnels and all that without paying. This is a quick one. Any more fun facts? We just got a minute left. Okay. A very quick one.

And this one, you have to kind of go out into the space station to figure it if it's true or not. Venus is the only planet that spins clockwise. Venus is the only planet of our nine that spins clockwise. Now, clockwise doesn't make any sense because these things aren't spinning vertically. They're spinning horizontally. I know. It's like if you have to kind of get on. top of it and look down because I thought the earth spuns clockwise, but it doesn't.

But if you get up and look down on the earth, it's actually... Oh, that's what you mean? Looking from above. Okay. Yes, it would be counterclockwise, the earth. Because I'm thinking from east to west, you're thinking like it's going, but if you look down on it, it's actually... Everything spins in one direction except for the planet Venus.

That is wild. Yeah. Yeah. And again, why is that? Why is it? But it's funny, Venus and Mars and men in Mars. women, you know, how they compare the planets. Fortunately, for our listeners, we're out of time.

Albin, thank you for more fun facts. I want to look up that one that we were debating, but absolutely fascinating stuff. God bless you. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Okay, I have never seen a discount this huge from Balance of Nature, and this discount is for a very limited time, so today is the day to order it. Look, if you've listened to me for any length of time, you've heard me rave about

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Folks, if you know me and my story, you know how excited I am to talk to the guest I have on right now. my guest is someone who is 91 years old and experienced the Holocaust as a German Jew. It is my honor to have on Jack Werfel and the book is called My Two Lives. Jack, it's just a great joy for me and a privilege to speak with you. Thanks for coming on the program.

Thank you for having me. Well, listen, your story, I mean, my mom is 89. she lived through this period. She did not, however, go through what you went through as a Jew in Germany under the Nazis. You are 91 years old. What made you wait till now to tell your story in a book? Well, Eric, people have asked me for years and years with I write a book about my experience because it's a bit different than most people here.

and I've always told them that, you know, there are thousands of other people who experienced very, very similar lives as I did in Germany, and as one of those. I'm really not a book writer, you know, that really wasn't my thing. And my two and a half months ago, my daughter, Dana, and her husband, and Tom set me down and said, Dad, you've got to write that book now. We want our children, our grandchildren, their grandchildren, and so on and so on, always to know where we come from, what our family is all about, where we lived, where you came from, how you came to the United States, and so on. Well, my daughter, Dana,

is the only person in the world probably. I can't say no to. So I finally said, okay, I tried, but I'm not a writer. I have never written a book. But I tried. Well, now you've written a book.

So I think you've disproved your thesis. So it's wonderful that you've done so. And this is why I think fathers need daughters. It's a wonderful thing because you can't say no, and I'm glad you didn't say no. The book, which is a very new book, it's called My Two Lives. And again, you experienced the Holocaust.

It's hard for us to believe that there are people alive today who have lived through that hell and are living through what we're seeing now with October 7th and the satanic evil of those who hate the Jews, who want to kill the Jews, and it is satanic. I want to ask you, what was it like in the best of your own words? And I know you said it in the book, but to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany, what part of Germany did you live in?

And how did this manifest itself in your childhood? Yeah, originally, actually, my family is from Austria. My father is from Vienna. He was Catholic. And he married my mother. who is Jewish and lived in Germany. So I met my mother. My mother actually is the most of the time that I spent with her,

except the first three or four years we spent in Germany. So, of course, you know, we have to, if they're young people listening and they don't understand, the Nazis were the definition of racist. They don't care what you believe. they only cared about where are you from, what's your blood? And if you have Jewish blood, you're a Jew. You could be a Jew who believes in the Christian God, who worships in a Christian church. They only care about what's racial. They only care about Jewish blood. And of course, in my book on Bonhoeffer, I talk about Bonhofer's best friend was ethnically Jewish, but he was ordained as a pastor. Of course, the Nazis don't care what you believe. They only care about, are you ethnically Jewish?

and if you are, you are their enemy. And so you're a boy growing up in this world. When did you first notice that something is going wrong? At what age were you? I was probably about four or five years old. I can't remember that far back. And what did you notice? Well, my father worked for President Shoshnik

in Austin. Your father worked for the president of Austria. Holy cow. Wow. Tell me the name of the president of Austria at that time. And this is before Dolphus, is that right? No. Well, that was just before the Anschlost, you know, before Hitler walked into Austria

and made Austria a part of Germany. And that was 38? Yeah. Okay. So my goodness, your father worked for the president of Austria. My goodness. And so I'm fascinated that at such a young age. If you were born in, I guess you were born in 32. Yes, that's correct. If you're born in 32, so when you say you're five years old, 1937, it was already getting dangerous, very dangerous in 1937. So what did you see in your life? And I know it's all in the book. The book is called My Two Lives. But what did you see? see as a child? How did your parents deal with this? Well, I heard my father say that Hitler was going to

come into Austria, take over Austria, so that he felt that to keep my brother and myself safe, we should go to Berlin, where my grandparents lived. And at that time, Berlin was evidently a little safer and being in Austria where Hitler was walking in. That's an unbelievable thing. I never would have guessed that. But, of course, your father was in the most elite circles possible, so he would be in a position to know. So he sent you and your brother to Berlin to live with your grandparents.

That's correct. And your grandparents were his parents? No, were her parents. My mother was Jewish. Yes. He was Catholic. So he sent you to live with your Jewish grandparents? I lived with my Jewish grandparents who were my mother's parents.

Okay, in Berlin. So what happens at this point? Obviously, he didn't know where this would take you, but what was your experience? Well, we moved to Berlin as children, my brother and I, to live with our grandparents. And sure enough, Hitler moved, of course, into Austria, which they called the Anschlos. and my father and President Choshnik, they were arrested, put on the same train, and they were both sent to a concentration camp, Saxonhausen, which is exactly north of Berlin, just a few miles north of Berlin.

So Hitler put all his political enemies in concentration camps, so you didn't need to be Jewish. your father was Catholic and Shishnich, I don't believe, was Jewish. Well, no, Shetnik was not Jewish. Yeah. He was a political enemy just like my father was considered. Yes. Yes.

Political enemy. Now, what my father did in my mother, when we came to Berlin, they took us to a Catholic church and had my brother and myself baptized. Catholic. Yeah. So whenever someone would ask us, what is your religion? What do you believe in? As little children, we would always say Catholic.

Yeah. And that's what one of the things that saved us. So it's, you say one of the things that saved you, but you ended up being sent to the death camps? No, we were not. You were not? We were not sent to the death camp. Because, okay, because you said you were Catholic.

So then what was your story? In other words, here you are living in Berlin. You have Jewish grandparents, but you have been baptized into the Catholic Church. And you're saying that this was the wisdom of your father and grandparents to protect you and your brother. Yes, that's correct. Now, what happened while we were living there? Things were getting honor and hotter in Berlin. and more and more people disappeared.

Several of my grandparents and my relatives disappeared. My uncles disappeared. My aunts disappeared. My kids, our age, disappeared. So my grandfather happened to know a camp in northern Germany on the North Sea called the place was called Dengast. That's a little village there. And this lady,

Irma Franson Heinrichstorff, who ran this camp for maybe 30, 40 children. And my grandfather sent us there. Now, this lady was not Jewish. She was very German. She had two children. And the two children were both, members of the Hitler youth. So she said, if you live here, I suggest, by the way, this lady knew

that we were Jewish. But she... This is... Excuse me, Jack. We're going to go to a break. Folks, plenty more. I'm talking. My guest is Jack Verful. The book is My Two Lives. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. and when I say only trust me they're the only one. Glenn and the team have been great supporters of this show, which is why I am proud to partner with them. Patriot Mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage, giving you the ability to access all three major networks,

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Nutrametics.com use the code Eric for 15% off. Again, Nutrametics, N-U-T-R-A-M-D-I-X.com. Nutrametics.com use the code Eric for 15% off. Welcome back, folks. I have the privilege of speaking with Jack Verfel, who's written a book My Two Lives, about his experience as a Jew during the Holocaust in Germany. So Jack, you said that your grandparents sent you to this camp,

and you, even though you were ethnically Jewish, you'd been baptized as Catholics, you're trying to escape death, and you were put into, to the Hitler youth, in a sense, to camouflage you, to make it look like you were on board with the Nazi thinking? Yeah, for one thing, but also you have to remember that all boys and girls at that age,

you had to be in the Hitler Jews. If you were not in the Hitler youth, there was something wrong, and they would come out and find out who the heck you are. And why aren't you in the Hitler youth? So this lady suggested we join with her children and the other children join the Hitler youth. Were you old enough at that time to be opposed to Hitler internally in your mind? Were you aware of those kinds of things?

How old were you when you were put into the Hitler youth? Well, it was about seven to eight years old at that time. And yes, we were very much aware of what was. growing run from my father, from my parents, from my mother, from the lady at the camp, and from all the other children at the camp where the Hitler youth. So why would we be in Hitler, they would question that, probably, you know? My mother is 89, so she's two years younger than you. And I know she missed the Hitler-Yugan for girls by one year.

She's always said that to me, that if she was one year older, she would have been put into that. But so you and your brother, is your brother older or younger? He's a year and a half older. A year and a half older than you. So you are enrolled as Jews in the Hitler youth. And were you afraid to speak? It seems to me that it would be a very difficult situation. Well, it was difficult.

It was very hard. My brother and I used to talk about it all the time, what we should do, and what It's best for us. And it was a terrible situation, but we had no choice. So we would act like all the other kids and be part of the Hitler youth. And you say that you saw many of your neighbors, your Jewish neighbors, suddenly disappearing. Yes. and children that I knew

overnight, the next day they were gone, it was terrible. And we didn't really know where they were going. And they told us while they were going east, their parents had another job. That's where the children were being told. Now, when we came to Berlin and my father was arrested,

my mother went to Czechoslovakia. to be in exile there. And she lived in Prague for, I think it was about two years, somewhere around there, until Hitler also came into Czechoslovakia. And then, of course, there he handled the Jews the same way he handled them in Germany and everywhere else. So I have to say you lost both of your parents murdered by the Nazis.

Yes. Do you, did you know at the time where your parents were? So here you and your brother are boys, little boys. Did you have an idea of where they were and what was happening? Well, yeah, I remember getting a letter or two for my mother. I knew that she wasn't proud. I knew that my father was in a concentration camp in Berlin. That I knew.

What happened after this? In other words, you were, you're in Nazi Germany, your boys, where did it go from there? I mean, as the war came, were you aware of where your parents were during the war? Well, yes, that was a time. My mother came back from Czechoslovakia, and she was very anxious to see us. And she called the lady at the camp, and she said, I want my boys to come to Berlin just for a short period of time. So we went back to Berlin to live with her in a separate apartment. What year was that, Jack?

I was about 10 years old then. So this is during the war, your mother, whose Jewish dared to go to Berlin? Yeah, come back to Berlin. Yeah. That's absolutely extraordinary. So in the middle of the war, your mother felt that it was okay to go to Berlin. That's extraordinary to hear. Yeah, she came back to Berlin and went to the apartment,

and my brother and I went back to live with her for a short period of time. While we were there, we found out and we were told that my father, mother were still in contact through an SS officer at the camp. And what they were doing, they were exchanging letters. So my brother and I were on a mission one day to deliver a letter to this gentleman. Now, my mother told us exactly how to get there by subway. We had to transfer. And we met the gentleman who had a code word.

we gave him the letter and he gave us a letter. This is unbelievable. Forgive me, we're going to another break. I'm talking to Jack Vorfel. It's WURFL. WURFL. The book is My Two Lives. This is all in the book.

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The amazing offer will not last long. Go to MyPillow.com. Use promo code Eric or call 800-9783057. That's promo code Eric. 800-97830573057 promo code Eric or go to MyPillow.com and use promo code Eric. Welcome back. I'm talking to the author of My Two Lives, Jack Vorfel, who experienced the Holocaust and Nazi Germany as a gentleman.

Jewish boy. Jack, you're telling us an extraordinary story that in 1942, an SS guard at Saxonhausen, I guess, was communicating, was a conduit so that your mother, your Jewish mother, could communicate with your father who was a political prisoner of the Nazis. And you and your brother delivered a letter to this man. How extraordinary. Yeah. He gave us a letter. We talked. We talked. took it back home. As we got out of the subway and turned the corner to go into our house, we noticed that there were a number of automobiles from the Gestapo and SS in front of our apartment house. We had an apartment there. And we decided carrying this letter, we better wait here and see what our mother tells us when they leave. So we waited there in the corner and we watched all this.

And to our surprise, they came out and with my mother, put my mother in one of the Gestapo crafts and took her away. My brother and I, we took that letter. We thought we best destroyed the letter at this point. We went back down in the subway station, tore it up into a thousand pieces, so that no way. one would find it. And that was the story with my mother, and she was now arrested. And it took my brother and myself about three days to find out where in Berlin my mother was imprisoned, in which prison. And we found that out. And as kids, we walked into the prison as if we owned the prison and ran around. And we found our mother.

herself. And we went into our mother and said, mother, you know, we are. And she said, boys, be good. Go to school. Learn as much as you can always. You know I will always love you. You will always love me. But leave this prison now because if you don't, you're going to end up where I am right now. You don't want to be here. So my brother and I went out. When I, of the prison. And as we got to the front gates, finally some officer had suspicion that,

what are these boys doing here and grabbed us? We tore ourselves loose and ran out into the street. They ran after us. But at 10-year-olds, we could run a little faster than they could. And we disappeared.

And they couldn't find us. Now, my mother, Before all of this happened, my mother said, if anything ever happens, while you live with me here in Berlin, here is the name of an attorney. You call him, tell him what happened to me, and he will take care of, take care of you, and tell you what to do. And he did, and he told us to go back immediately to Denghis, to this lady, to this camp where we had lived before. And that's what we did. In 1942, you at 10 and your brother at 11 or 12 traveled by yourself to northern Germany to reunite with the woman who had been caring for you before your mother.

Yeah, that's correct. We went back by train. This is unbelievable. This should be a movie, Jack. I think your family probably realizes this. What an extraordinary story to hear you telling this. It's absolutely amazing that at this age, you experienced this. Yes. Yes, we did.

So you go back to this woman. What part of Germany was it again? Was it Pomerania? Where is it? Well, it was called Dengas, and it's in northern Germany. It's called Friesland. And it's right on the North Sea. Okay. Our camp was only one block from the beach. Friesland. And so I imagine I know this area. And so, I imagine, I know this area. And so, So what happened to you at this point? It's 1942.

Your father is at Sachsenhausen. Your mother has been arrested by the Nazis. Were you in contact with them? Did you know what happened to them after that? When did you find out? No. Found out a little later. In the meantime, we were still in the Hitler youth.

When we were two years above that, they were teaching us how to use simple weapons like hand grenades. We fired bazookers. We learned how to march. We had to learn how to say Heil Hitler, and so on. We went to school in this little village

into teacher, luckily, who wasn't also an SS officer, but taught us every day. He knew very well. well, what we call Hunter Irma, Irma Fransenheimersdorf, the lady who ran the camp. And between the two of them, they knew who we were. And they every so often gave us advice. Now, we went school every morning at 8 o'clock and learned the Hitler philosophy.

We sang songs, German songs, about the day. of the Jews and kill the Jews and all these sort of things. And we had to sing along with everybody else. We had no choice. Because if we didn't, that would be the end of us. So now we had two friends in Dungas, the lady who went to him as well as our teacher. I mean, the fact that the teacher was in the S.

is unbelievable. In other words, the idea that you have a teacher who's in the SS who knew that you were Jews and that this teacher who was in the SS participated in protecting you.

That's the kind of a story we don't often hear. It's an amazing thing. Yeah. He would teach us 8 o'clock in the morning until 1 o'clock noon. And then he he would go change into his black uniform, get on his motorcycle, and take off for his SSS meetings.

We never knew where he was going, what they were doing, what he was doing, but he was always very good to us. There's so much more to this story, folks. I'm talking to Jack Worfel, W-U-R-F-L. The book is My Two Lives. We'll be right back. Welcome back. I'm talking to Jack Vorfel, W-U-R-F-L, who's written a book about growing up as a Jew during the Holocaust. It is an absolutely fascinating story. If you've been listening, you know that's true. The book is titled My Two Lives. So, Jack, it is extraordinary that here you are being protected by somebody in the SS. And this is just a lesson for all of us that things. are not what they seem. There are people who are members of wicked organizations, corporations,

you name it, who may not be on board with the philosophy. They are on the inside trying to do something. Did you know what happened to this SS member

later on in life? Yes, he after the end of the war, he was arrested, of course, because he was SS. And about a year later, our Tundra, the lady who ran the camp, went to the present camp and told them who this gentleman really was that he was, yes, he was the teacher of the children there. He taught them, but he helped them. And they actually let him go out of prison much earlier than in normally would have.

So the allies understood that this is not your typical SS member. So when you were, during the war still, while it looks like the Nazis may prevail, I know that in the end that there were some 12-year-old boys. You were 12 at the end of the war, 13, that there were some 12- and 13-year-olds being, you know, conscripted to help this failing war effort. I've seen the films of these kinds of things.

What was happening in your life in 44 and 45? Did you have a sense that the Nazis are losing? Did you ever have a sense that you and your brother might be asked to fight in Hitler's army? Yes, we were in what they call it, the Volkspolytze, which means, folks police. And at the end of the war, my brother and I and other children, we were all asked to stay in the fields outside of Dengas. So when the German army was retreating by the allies, that we would then protect them and fight the allies. You know, as a 12-year-old boy, We were supposed to protect the army, the German army that was going back.

There's one thing I'd like to tell you that I haven't mentioned to you. My mother, at Christmas time, after my mother was arrested, she was taken to Auschwitz. And at Christmas time, tend to her mom. the lady who went to home. She had almost become our second mother. That's the way we felt about her. She called us in that Christmas Day to tell us that she heard that my mother was killed

in Archwood's, that she was dead. What year was that, Jack? Yeah, this was about the year of 1945, I would say. So this is after the war, Christmas 45, or this was 44 before the end of the war? The war ended up in 45. 45, yeah. We're going to go to a break.

I want to keep talking to you. So, folks, I will continue my conversation by God's Grace with Jack Worfel. The book is My Two Lives. Hey there, folks. When I am interested in talking about the economy, or about gold or silver, I typically reach out to my friend Charles Thorngren at Legacy Precious Metals.

Oh, look, there he is. Hello, Charles. Here, how are you? I have a couple of questions. I read recently that gold, now the website is legacy p.m.investments.com in case anybody wants to check it out, and I hope you do LegacyPMinvestments.com. but I just read that gold is getting harder to mine.

Do you know anything about this? Actually, yeah, I do. And it's interesting, yes, it's getting harder to mine. You know, we have to understand that gold is a finite source, right? And it's mined where it's the easiest to get to. The more difficult, the more costly it is. So there are some prohibiting factors when you're mining gold. You obviously want to get it as easily as.

you can so that you reduce the cost to mine it because the ultimate price you're going to get for your gold is whatever the spot price is, right, minus what it costs you to get it out of the ground. So that's one of those fallacies. People think that if your gold, minor, you're suddenly rich. Well, no, there's a lot of money that goes into mining of metals. It's not easy and it's not cheap. So with that said, you have to find sources that make it profitable to go after it. And this is your problem that you're having with mining right now. There's such a demand for metals. and not just from people. I mean, people, we make a big part of it,

but from central banks as well. You're seeing governments trying to back the stability of their currency and their country by holding precious metals. So easy supply has been absorbed. This is what makes it difficult. This is why you see it becoming harder because now you have to go to further reaches to get it.

And it's going to raise the cost more just from that factor as well. Wait, so say that again. how does that factor into the price of gold? You're saying it makes it go up. It does, because what will happen is, if you're a miner, and it costs you more than $3,000 an ounce to get it out of the ground, you're not going to sell it for $2,300 an ounce.

You're going to store it. I've never really thought of this, that when you said, yeah, gold is finite, so it's obviously all the easy places to get it, the places where the mining, the extraction is not that expensive, those have pretty much been exhausted. In other words, it's like people aren't stupid. They're going to go to the places where it's easiest.

And as time passes, you think, okay, well, now we have to go here if we want to get gold. And it costs more so the price goes up. I never thought of this. This is why it's fun to talk to you. I just never would have thought of that before. And you typically don't see these issues until you have a scenario where no one's selling their gold. People aren't losing their gold. They're not selling it and saying, okay, I'm done with gold.

Everyone knows they need gold, and it's here to stay for a while because we have big issues. So you've taken out the secondary cycling of gold out of the market. This is why that initial market, new gold, is becoming more expensive and harder to get to. Okay. I want to ask you about Trump and the election and its effect on gold prices. But before that, I want to ask you, I had it in my notes, and I want to make sure I ask you, What coins specifically and bars are popular right now with your clients at Legacy Precious metals? By the way, people go to the website, they can see what's available, right?

So legacy PM Investments.com, you can see, but I'm just asking you kind of off top of your head, if you know. So what we see people doing right now is the most common things are your bullion coins and your bullion bars. You're looking at bars that are manufactured by reputable sources and bullion coins from reputable nations. Gold American Eagles, the Canadian Maple Leaf. But the gold American Eagles are gorgeous. Are they not? They're beautiful. I love the coin.

It's a beautiful coin. If you're going to get gold, you don't have to. But to me, it's just so beautiful. Do you know when those gold, it wasn't it a St. Goddens who designed them? I'm trying to remember. The first gold coin was the St. Codons. That was when we created our own coin. And it was done by Teddy Roosevelt, believe it or not.

And he created a coin that he wanted to have something that resembled and matched the beauty of the coins from Europe. So that's how that coin was created. And St. Gardens was not a coin maker. He was just an artist that they brought in. So it is a beautiful coin. I mean, I used to be a coin collector. When I was a kid, you know, I was really into it. And that is just, it's heavenly.

It's just, it's just beautiful. Anyway, okay, so I want to get to, my main question was to ask you about the election. And what do you see happening with the price of gold and silver with regard to the election? Can the election, will the election affect it, how? What do you think? Election will definitely affect it. And, you know, we have to look at both scenarios. If we have a continuation of what's going on now, obviously we can see,

where that road leads. That's a road to ruins. The economy will be in shambles if we go through another four years of the same administration. But the big question is, if Trump wins the election, what changes? And I think we have to be realistic about this. Him winning the election will fix the economy, but it's not from day one. It's not going to be a scenario where he wins the election and suddenly inflation is down, interest rates are normalized, things are going well. Right. We have four years of turmoil that needs to be unwound. And it doesn't matter how good you are at your job.

That takes time. Yeah. And that's what people need to realize. The winning of the election is the start of the race. It's not the finish. There still is a race to be run. So when we look at this, and I think it's common and normal for people to say, I'm going to just hold off and wait and see what happens.

what you're committing to then is waiting two to three years until things become normalized again because that's what it's going to take. Macro-economics does not move fast. It moves very, very slow. So when you're considering, should you do this, the election's important, but not so important that you should hold off a wait to see who wins.

Because either way, gold should be in your portfolio. If you're interested in getting gold, ladies and gentlemen, we recommend legacy precious metals, go to legacy pm investments.com. Legacy pminvestments.com. Charles Thorngren always a joy to speak with you. Thank you. Pleasure as always. Thank you.