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The AIH Transcript for December 7, 2018

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello I'm Carol Off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening. I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight...

CO: A prison he cannot leave. Four decades after inmates raped a boy on a 'scared straight' tour of a British Columbia prison, he's awarded a cash settlement but says the money cannot touch the trauma he has suffered.

JD: Disconnection notice. 600 call centre workers in Cape Breton are abruptly fired leaving them shattered and heartbroken and unsure how they'll pay the holiday bills.

CO: Abandon ship. The search and rescue ship 'Aquarius' has saved the lives of countless migrants facing death in the Mediterranean, but as of today because of pressure from European governments it is docked.

JD: Finding the words to talk about finding the words. An encore presentation of our interview with a Toronto prof who found the lyrics to long lost Second World War songs by Soviet Jews and helped turn them into a Grammy nominated album.

CO: The bearer of bad nose. An expert shares her theories on why several monk seals in Hawaii have wound up with eels up their nostrils, for whom it may just be a rite of passage.

JD: And a story with many facets but just one layer. The epic tale of a 68-year-old albatross by the name of 'wisdom' who has just laid at least her 37th egg. As It Happens. The Friday edition. Radio that guesses she's got eggs that just won't quit.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Man raped during 'scared straight' prison tour says he was too ashamed to tell anyone

British Columbia Rape Case

JD: They called it a 'scared straight' tour, but it went beyond scary to terrifying and deeply traumatic. 40 years ago when a Grade 8 student got into trouble with the law, a judge in British Columbia ordered him to visit a local prison, the Oakalla Prison -- which has since been shut down. It was to be a part of the teenager's probation -- there he was taken by a corrections officer to a group of inmates who sexually assaulted him. For decades he told no one, but this week a judge ordered the British Columbia government to pay that boy, who is now a man in his 50s, a 175,000 dollars for the brutal assault. We reached that man today in Langley, British Columbia. To protect his privacy we are not identifying him. And a warning: this interview does contain details of sexual assault.

CO: First of all can I ask you what did it mean for you this week to get this financial award from the British Columbia Supreme Court?

VOICE: It's a little bit of help but it wasn't enough in my opinion. I mean guys that have been wrongfully imprisoned get more. And I'm in my own little prison myself -- and I will be for life.

CO: You are now in your 50s right?

VOICE: Yes.

CO: And this ordeal began for you when you were just a boy -- you were in Grade 8. How old were you then?

VOICE: I was 13-14.

CO: And you got into a bit of trouble and you were in front of a judge. What did you do that got you in trouble with the law?

VOICE: Oh I did a break and enter.

CO: You with some friends?

VOICE: Yeah. Oh we broke into a house and stole the TV and then we got caught.

CO: Drank some orange juice from the fridge right?

VOICE: Oh yeah. [Chuckles] Yeah. Stupid kids. Yeah it was like a peer pressure thing. Dare like thing to do it.

CO: So you had a probationary sentence the judge gave you. And how did he explain this idea of having a 'scared straight' prison visit?

VOICE: What he explained to my parents was they have a scared straight program and what it's supposed to do is scare their kids straight so they stop getting in trouble. And they asked my parents if they would allow me to go through this program, and they said yes.

CO: This is Oakalla prison.

VOICE: Oakalla prison in Burnaby. Yes.

CO: What was it? What were you supposed to be toured? What were you supposed to see when you were there?

VOICE: I didn't know at the time. I was in the dark. I was just a scared little kid going to jail for all I knew.

CO: What happened -- they took you to the prison gate -- what happened?

VOICE: Well the probation officer dropped me off at the front gate and I was taken in by a guard and we went up a couple of tiers in the jail and there was five inmates standing there -- and he pushed me in a cell and the five guys came into the cell and proceeded to rape me.

CO: What did the guard do?

VOICE: He was standing at the bars -- holding onto the bars laughing.

CO: And there was no other adult supervision? Nobody came with you. They put you in there, gave you to the guard, and that was it? Nobody protecting you.

VOICE: Nope.

CO: How long did you stay there?

VOICE: Felt like an eternity, but for half a day. After they finished raping me, he took me out of the cell. And I don't want to swear, but he said, 'That's what happens to little F-ers like you.' And then he took me across the parking lot. I find out now that it's called 'the hole.' And he took me down the stairs and put me in a cell and locked me up. I don't know how long I was in there, it felt like forever. And then he came back and he took me out of the cell and he says, 'nobody's going to believe you.' And then we'll walk back to the front gate and the probation officer picked me up.

CO: When he said 'no one's going to believe you' he meant about being raped by these inmates?

VOICE: Yeah. I was scared to death.

CO: Of course. Did you tell anybody?

VOICE: No. No, I didn't tell anybody for 37 years. I was too embarrassed -- ashamed.

CO: How did you manage to keep it a secret from your parents?

VOICE: I don't know. I just -- like I say, I was so ashamed. I was blaming myself that I deserved what I got. And I relied on what the correctional officer said, 'nobody's going to believe you.' I thought okay well no one is going to believe me, so I can't tell anybody -- get a little too embarrassed you because that's not supposed to happen. You know I was just a little kid.

CO: But you were physically hurt -- you had been physically damaged.

VOICE: Oh yeah I was bleeding. Yeah. For at least a week I had to hide my underwear from my mother -- and I threw them in the alley behind the house and she would ask where is all your underwear going? And I'm like I don't know mom, you do the laundry. I tried to hide it as best as possible.

CO: Did your parents notice any change in your behavior and how you reacted?

VOICE: My mom did. She noticed something was -- I changed. She took me to a psychologist and said you know there is something going up with him -- he has changed, he is not the same.

CO: Did you tell this psychiatrist anything?

VOICE: No. No.

CO: So you just kept this a secret for all these decades?

VOICE: Yeah. It's been chewing me up for 40 years -- chews me up to this day.

CO: Who did you finally tell?

VOICE: I believe it was a counselor I saw about four years ago or five years ago. I was seeing her two-three times a week and she had noticed that something was up. And if I don't feel comfortable with you, I won't tell that story -- even now. And I told her.

CO: You were still suffering the nightmares. You were still living that day over and over again.

VOICE: I do almost everyday. Not a day goes by I don't think about it.

CO: What did you tell the court about what happened to you?

VOICE: I gave them the whole story -- exactly what I'm telling you now about what went on -- I was gang raped at 14 years old.

CO: And the court believed you?

VOICE: Yes. Thank God they did. Yes.

CO: Did you think at some point that they wouldn't?

VOICE: My lawyer Jason Gratl -- I mean he was very helpful along the way, and I didn't even get through half of the story telling him the day I met him and he said, I believe you. He said you can't make this up. There's too much detail there. You can't pop this out of the sky and make this story up. It's impossible.

CO: We're not using your name. But you have agreed to tell us this horrible story about what happened to you. Why is that? What do you want to accomplish by making this story public?

VOICE: You know It's not about the money to me anymore, because the money is nothing -- I mean it's not going to fix anything. It will help me pay for some future care -- psychologist and stuff like that. That's about it. My main thing is I would like to get the voice out there that... [exhales] ahh I'm getting emotional -- to tell everybody, especially men because this isn't supposed to happen, men don't talk about it. Just don't wait 40 years like I did. Tell somebody. You know this is not okay. Something has to be done. These predators need to be caught. And enough is enough. It has got to stop. Wrecks way too many lives.

CO: Is it possible that by speaking out that anybody else who has gone through this 'scared straight' practice program at Oakalla prison that there are others who could come forward and tell their story of what happened to them?

VOICE: I hope so. I hope so. I hope I give them some kind of empowerment to say, 'Hey this guy did it. I'm not going to be quiet anymore. My turn.' I hope they do. It is kind of a healing process for me to talk about it now. It helps me heal I guess you could say.

CO: I'm so sorry about what happened to you. But I do appreciate you telling us. I think that you're right that it might encourage others, especially young ones, to come forward.

VOICE: Male and female. I mean you know if somebody is touching you wrong -- anything like that, just say something. Say something. Don't hold it in. It's going to just eat you up inside. Do it right away. Tell somebody.

CO: Thank you so much for that advice. I think that is well appreciated. And thank you for telling us your story.

VOICE: You're welcome.

CO: Bye.

JD: This week a B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered the provincial government to pay our guest 175,000 dollars in damages for a sexual assault he endured during a 'scared straight' tour of the now shuttered Oakalla prison in Burnaby, British Columbia. To protect his privacy we are not identifying him. We did reach him in Langley. We've posted more on that story on our website cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Aquarius Ending Operation

Guest: Dr. Tom de Kok

JD: As of today there are no charity rescue ships operating in the Mediterranean to help those crossing its dangerous waters. Medecins Sans Frontieres and its partner rescue organization SOS Mediterrannee announced today that they had no choice but to end all operations by the search and rescue ship 'Aquarius.' Since 2015 the ship has been helping people in the international waters between Libya, Italy, and Malta. This year alone more than 2,000 refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers, have died crossing that deadliest migration route. Dr. Tom de Kok is a Canadian physician and a project coordinator on the Aquarius. We reached him on board the ship which is currently in the French port of Marseilles.

CO: Dr. de Kok what is the mood onboard the Aquarius today?

TOM DE KOK: In a word I would say it is somber. People are not happy with the result of being forced to stop operations with this vessel.

CO: And why do you have to stop the operations to rescue migrants?

TDK: This is the end of a two year long campaign, most recently topped off with a false accusation that we were intentionally profiteering in our waste management in Sicily. Previous to that Italy had leveraged Panamanian maritime authority to remove our flag. And then before that the flag of Gibraltar and it is in a long line of smear campaigns that have been aimed at undermining the legitimacy of search and rescue operations.

CO: When you say a two year campaign who has been conducting this campaign?

TDK: For a short radio program the answer is the Italian government. But it is symptomatic of a wider European policy. Preventing us from engaging in these operations means that one of two things happen -- people who are at sea are either intercepted by the Libyan coast guard and returned to Libya or they drown.

CO: And countless thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean trying to make that crossing is that correct?

TDK: That is very correct.

CO: Just this past -- well I guess in the past year there have been 2,000 people who have died in the Mediterranean making the crossing. What the Aquarius been able to do? How have you been able to rescue people since you started operations in 2016?

TDK: The how is to engage in what is not an abnormal activity for any marine vessel which is to provide help to anyone who is in distress that we encountered. It's like a captain's Hippocratic Oath. We've had serious mass casualty incidents in which we're pulling people out of the water with hypothermia. In many cases it's also underlying mental health as a result of traumas that have been experienced in people's flight from their particular country of origin -- and also being detained and stuck in Libya. And then as well, all forms of other minor ailments. So the spread and spectrum of the medical conditions we encounter are wide.

CO: What was the source of this idea -- the Italian authorities accused Medecins Sans Frontieres of dumping toxic waste -- and that was where I guess what finally shut down the Aquarius. What was behind that?

TDK: That claim and accusation is based on the fact that it is politically exigent to stoke fear -- and that claiming that people who are saved who are either migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers, are somehow vectors of serious disease -- that peoples clothes might be a vector for meningitis -- that tuberculosis can be picked up on food or even HIV. It was a patently absurd and preposterous claim and unfortunately it gained traction in a legal system that you can only wonder how well it is functioning.

CO: So the people themselves and their possessions were the toxic waste that the Italian authorities accused MSF of bringing to the country?

TDK: That's correct.

CO: Are there any other ships out there now who are looking out for the people who are out on these vessels trying to cross the Mediterranean?

TDK: So there are two organizations that presently have the intention of going back out. One is docked in Barcelona and the other is docked in Gibraltar. But they face very similar hurdles that we're dealing with in terms of access to a port of safety, cooperation of local authorities, to refuel and change oil. It is not an easy milieu in which to find oneself. We hope for the wellbeing of people who are trying to flee Libya and those who are pulled back into arbitrary and indefinite detention in Libya that they find a way just like ourselves to get back to what we're here to do. Asylum seeking is a right. And the fact is when people depart and they are in the Gulf of Sirte right now with four metre waves they are neither a refugee, they're neither a migrant, they're not an asylum seeker, they are somebody that is in need of rescue, period. There's no negotiation about that. The law is very clear. That is what we do and that is what is fundamentally being undermined right now.

CO: Dr. de Kok we will leave it there. I appreciate speaking with you thank you.

TDK: Thank you very much for your time Carol. Have a wonderful evening. Bye bye.

JD: Dr. Tom de Kok is a Canadian physician and a project coordinator on board the Aquarius. We reached him on the ship in the port of Marseilles.

[Music]

Eel Seals

Guest: Michelle Barbieri

JD: It does not seem a particularly easy thing to be a Hawaiian monk seal. They are endangered. They're dealing with threats like entanglement, habitat destruction, and disease. And in recent years researchers have also noticed that they are experiencing another weirder problem. Several Hawaiian monk seals have been observed with eels up their nostrils. This week NOAA's Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program posted a photograph of a seal taken earlier this year. You may have seen it. It has been shared widely across social media. Michelle Barbieri is a veterinarian who treats these seals. We reached her in Honolulu to tell us what might be going on.

CO: Michelle your department has created a bit of frenzy online with this photo -- just for those who haven't seen it, what's happening to the seal?

MICHELLE BARBIERI: Well the seal is laying on the beach as we would expect it to normally -- it just happens to have an eel hanging out of its nose.

CO: An eel hanging out of its nose. And it looks quite wedged in there. What is going on?

MB: Well that's a question that we were asking ourselves as well and have been for a couple of years now. We aren't entirely sure what has happened in this photo because the eel is dead and the seal seems to be doing okay. But we're certainly curious to know a little bit more about what might be leading to these events. Even though we've been studying monk seals for many many years, we've only just recently observed this phenomenon for seals.

CO: But he doesn't seem, he or she -- I don't know what gender it is, it doesn't seem bothered by it. It looks actually quite content. Is that misleading?

MB: That's perfectly accurate. We feel that the eel in the nose is probably uncomfortable, but the seals seem to be doing okay. Just out of an abundance of caution we thought it was probably a good thing to try to help the seal out and we were fortunate enough to have a couple of trained seal biologists on site at the time and they were able to hold the seal so that they could pull the eel out and it went on its way.

CO: How do you extract an eel from the nostrils of a seal?

MB: [Chuckles] Well it was not something we had a protocol for ahead of time. However it was something that we thought carefully about and we ended up deciding that the best thing was to slowly remove that eel. We didn't want it to break off and remain in the seal's nose. It was pulled out very gently, very slowly -- took about a minute to do. And really the most challenging aspect of it is the biologists that needed to be trained to restrain the seal safely in the first place. Pulling out the eel was kind of the easier bit.

CO: What are some of your theories as to why this might be happening?

MB: Well monk seals do eat eels so we know that eels part of their regular diet. We also know that monk seals forage most commonly on the ocean floor and they will look for little holes or in Hawaii we say 'puka' -- they will go into these little nooks and crannies in their environment and pull out prey items, eels definitely being one of them. So one of the things that we wonder is did the seal just happen to regurgitate the eel and it ended up going out the nose? Why we haven't seen that before if we know that eels are part of seals diet might beg the question, are there perhaps more eels around for seals to be preying on in the recent few years -- is something going on with the eel population? And of course that begs the question what else is going on in the ecosystem that might be changing that food web for the seals? And we just happened to see what comes to the surface.

CO: It's a long eel. So do you think that's plausible that it's in the course of snorting that eel out through its nose?

MB: It's the thing that makes the most sense to us, of course it's not the only thing. Whether or not the eel deliberately crawled in the seal's nose is another question that we could ask. Seals tend to, when they dive, they hold their breath though so their nostrils would be closed when they're underwater. I would think it would be pretty unlikely that an eel would be able to just deliberately crawl into the nose of a seal.

CO: Why do you think it's just happening to the young seals?

MB: It might be happening to the young seals because the younger seals are the ones that are exploring more. They're figuring out how to forage. So it could just be that their curiosity and the way that they're going about finding food just makes them more likely. It could also just be that we haven't seen very many and it was just a coincidence that they were all in young seals so far.

CO: So do you think they're kind of playing around?

MB: They could be. Yeah we see them play around in the tide pools and near shore -- they'll play around with sea cucumbers. Sometimes recently weaned pups will have sea cucumber guts kind of stuck all over their [inaudible] so it is common to see these young seals playing with things in their environment.

CO: So maybe they're just doing it to bother the other seals like kids. [Chuckles]

MB: [Chuckles] That I can't say.

CO: [Laughs] But if you could give advice as a veterinarian -- if you could give advice to a young seal considering 'eel snorting' what would you tell him?

MB: Well I would say try to take good care and make sure that you're putting your... well no, I don't even know. [Chuckles]

CO: How about 'just don't do it?'

MB: Yeah, 'just don't do it' is a great answer. But we actually have a lot of other threats that really are facing Hawaiian monk seals. Eels pretty funny to see popping up on Facebook. But there really are some serious threats to the species.

CO: Actually because you mentioned other issues facing the seals. We spoke with another member of your department earlier this year when there was an island where these seals live, East Island, have been wiped off the map by a hurricane. So there is a lot of threats to these creatures right now aren't there?

MB: There are. There are a variety of different threats to this species -- some of those being human related, some of those being related to other feral animals. We have an issue with some diseases as well. So food limitation, disease, marine debris, entanglement, a whole lot of things are actually chipping away at the seal population. And so while we're doing everything we can and we're optimistic that the work that we do is making a difference, there are some real challenges to the species.

CO: Michelle it's good to talk to you. Thanks.

MB: Thank you.

CO: Bye.

MB: Bye bye.

JD: Michelle Barbieri is a veterinarian with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program. We reached her in Honolulu. And if you would like to see a photograph of a seal with an eel up its nose -- that is perhaps the first time I've ever said that phrase, visit our website cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Pete Shelley

JD: "We wanted to be intelligent, but not intellectual. We wanted to be entertaining, but not entertainers." That is how Pete Shelley summed up his influential first band in a 2015 interview. It is about as wryly concise a summation of what Buzzcocks accomplished as possible. But then again being wryly concise was what Mr. Shelley did best. Pete Shelley -- one of the great songwriters of the punk era, died yesterday of a heart attack. He was 63 years old. Buzzcocks happened because punk happened. Their first ever gig was opening for the Sex Pistols in 1976. But what made Buzzcocks different from their more political peers was that Pete Shelley wrote songs about love. They were punk songs about love -- short, witty, fast, and loud. But they were also classic pop songs and that made them hits. After Buzzcocks broke up Pete Shelley went solo and immediately scored a major hit with a song that directly addressed the fluidity of gender and sexuality, but was banned by the BBC for its "explicit reference to gay sex." But Mr. Shelley's solo career fizzled around the same time that those classic Buzzcocks songs were being discovered by a new audience. And so in the late 80s the group reformed and Mr. Shelley would wind up playing those classic perfect punk pop songs for the rest of his life.

[Music]

Part 2: Hundreds out of a job as call centre closes in Cape Breton

Nova Scotia Call Centre

Guest: Kayla Williams

JD: Hundreds of call centre workers in Cape Breton are feeling angry and betrayed. They were at work at ServiCom yesterday when they were abruptly told they no longer had jobs. They knew that ServiCom was in financial trouble but had been told that a new buyer had been secured to save the call centre and their jobs. That, it turns out, is not true. Kayla Williams is one of the laid off workers. We reach Ms. Williams in Sydney.

CO: Kayla how did you learn that you were out of a job?

KAYLA WILLIAMS: I went into work yesterday and after I had heard what I thought was a rumour --director of ServiCom, Todd Riley, had called a team meeting with the whole centre where he then declared that the section 11 bankruptcy -- they could not come to an agreement, and as of that very moment we were done.

CO: It must have been a really emotional moment for everybody eh?

KW: Yes. It was bad.

CO: Tell us how people were reacting at that time.

KW: There were some people angry -- screaming, yelling. The majority of the people were crying -- you know panic attacks, things like that to be expected during a situation like that. I kind of just had to -- [exhales] I took a panic attack myself. My head wasn't in the right spot. I couldn't think straight. All I knew was to just grab my stuff and walk out before anything bad happened because there were police present there. I do believe it was about six or seven police there -- in the building as well.

CO: Why were the police there?

KW: I feel like the police were there because the last time we did have a meeting which was when the bankruptcy had first started, people went wild. You know very aggravated and coming at Todd Riley as if it was his fault. So I feel like it was more so of a protection thing just to make sure things didn't get too far out of hand and probably just to make sure that we did all leave the building and that you know nothing got damaged in there such as computers and things like that.

CO: And Todd Riley is the ServiCom manager -- is he the one who made this announcement?

KW: He's site director, he is the one that made the announcement. Yes.

CO: But he had given reassurances that there was to be a new buyer for the call centre. What became of that?

KW: He never made any reassurances. From the beginning of the section or chapter 11 -- we were promised that you know we had nothing to worry about, we were very wealthy in our company, we didn't have anything to worry though, no worries about you know losing our job. So at that point we were promised a 250 dollar loyalty bonus for those of us that you know have been there, as well as a 150 dollar attendance bonus to stick through you know the hard time that we were going through. We did not know anything about a potential buyer until yesterday.

CO: And does it seem to be still possible -- that you may not be out of a job?

KW: As of right now we are out of a job. From what I'm reading on Mr. Riley's Facebook page is that they had been in a meeting all day -- there trying to get everything signed off. Nothing is indefinite, but they're trying to you know make sure that we get our pay because at this point it's unknown if we're ever going to see the money that we're owed. And they're hoping that if the buyer does go through with it that there will be a new centre in the new year.

CO: Mr. Riley who was the manager at this time he said that the current owners decision to close the call centre so close to Christmas was a cowardly act and he said -- this is a quote from him. "They lied to me. I had to work with 700 people to go in day-and-day out to keep people on the phones, encouraging them that things were going to get better. I'm very disappointed. A lot of people have to go without pay before Christmas." What do you say to Mr. Riley?

KW: I don't feel like he had blindsided us at all. You know a lot of people try to pin the blame on him. He was simply just releasing information to us that he was being told by the higher ups. I feel like this is not Todd Riley's fault at all. You know he ran that centre and he ran that centre well. You know all of us pretty much came together as one big family you know when you're working with 700 people you build a close bond. I had not once put the blame on Todd Riley. But you know there are a lot of people on his side. But at the same time there's a lot of people against him as well.

CO: Does the company owe you money?

KW: Yes.

CO: Can you tell me an idea of how much -- pay out of pocket?

KW: We were supposed to get paid last Friday so that would have been a two week pay they owe us for -- from Monday to Thursday of this week as well.

CO: Do you expect to see that money?

KW: No.

CO: And what does that mean for you?

KW: Hard times. I mean like the first thing this morning I got up, I got ready for work like my usual regular routine, and then I realized you know I don't really have a job to go to. So I went to -- the closest option that I had was at this time unemployment -- to try to get help through unemployment until you know another centre opens, if they do re-open.

CO: Do you have kids?

KW: I do. Yes. I have a two and a half year old daughter, and an 8 year old stepdaughter. Mortgage. Oil. Light. Water. All of it.

CO: And it is almost Christmas.

KW: Yes. And it's almost Christmas.

CO: And you're not alone. We're talking about six or seven hundred people out of work. So what does this mean for Sydney?

KW: It's going to be hard for a lot of people. ServiCom, they fed and clothed people for all those years -- all 700 people. And jobs are very scarce around here. It's not easy to find another job. So I feel like it's just a bad situation all around.

CO: Well let's see what happens in the coming days. Maybe this will turn around.

KW: That's what I'm hoping for.

CO: I do too Kayla. Thank you.

KW: You're welcome.

CO: Bye.

KW: Bye bye.

JD: We reached Kayla Williams in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

[Music]

The ex-mas gift

JD: The year was 1971. Adrian Pearce was a high school student in Toronto. He was going steady with his first girlfriend, Vicki Allen. When the holidays rolled around Vicki handed Adrian his Christmas gift and dumped him. Adrian was so upset at the time that he did not open the gift. And then he kept not opening it. For nearly five decades he put it beneath his Christmas tree every year but did not open it. And then yesterday in Edmonton he decided to finally see what was hidden in the blue wrapping paper. His ex-girlfriend Vicki flew in from Vancouver Island to open it for him. And today on CBC Radio's "Edmonton AM" Adrian Pearce revealed what the gift was.

SOUNDCLIP

ADRIAN PEARCE: Everybody wondered what it was going to be and the woman, Vicki, who gave me the gift was just as surprised as everyone else. And what it is is a little book from the 1970s called "Love Is..." It's so appropriate. It's a collection of comic strips -- I guess back in the 70s. I only vaguely remember this comic strip but it is sort of cartoon husband and wife and all about their story. It's so cute [chuckles]. It was wonderful that she came all the way from where she lives in British Columbia at her own expense just to be here for this event. [Chuckles] She was a little shocked herself. She had no idea what was in that gift. And even when it was opened, it didn't have any recognition for her. But she wasn't surprised. The price on the book is 50 cents. [Laughter] That is half an hour's wage from what she was making at Canadian Tire. And in fact the gift is going to stay with me -- I'm going to have it professionally framed, so it looks really great. And the reason I want to do that is that it's been a part of most of my life now so I still want to keep it. I'll look at it every now and then and remember what a wonderful story this has been. And it is not over yet. Vicki and I are going to remain friends. And she and my wife are very good friends already. So this is like having a gift in itself having this person that I like back in my life.

JD: After 47 years Adrian Pearce finally opened the gift his ex-girlfriend gave him when she dumped him in high school. He was on "Edmonton AM" this morning.

[Music]

Bilbies

JD: Dateline: Narrabri, Australia.

[Music]

JD: You know when you have an itch that you can't scratch? And that intense relief you feel when someone finally scratches it for you. Well then you know how the soil in the Pilliga Forest feels today. It has been more than a century since a marsupial called the bilby was last seen in the area. To humans they're adorable -- like a cross between a rabbit, a wombat, and a possum. But the Pilliga Forest in Narrabri, bilbies are family. You see bilbies dig a lot. They dig burrows, and they dig entire systems of tunnels, they dig for food -- all of which turns over soil and encourages plant growth. Bilbies are one of the animals responsible for the very existence of Pilliga forest which is now more than 3000 square kilometres. But around the turn of the 20th century people showed up in the region -- they brought livestock that ate the plants bilbies had been eating. Even worse they brought foxes from England because they thought it would be fun to hunt them. The foxes multiplied and hunted the bilbies, severely denting their population. It has been 106 years since anyone saw a bilby in New South Wales or since the soil of Pilliga forest felt that soothing scratching as the little creatures dug for shelter and sustenance. But on Monday night officials with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy released 30 bilbies bred in captivity into the forest. More specifically into a fenced in 8000 hectare area that's been cleared of predators. From a video about the reintroduction here is Wildlife Conservancy Science and Conservation Manager John Kanowski.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN KANOWSKI: Bilbies like many of the small mammals they do amazing things as part of a rolling ecosystem and they dig a lot of soil. And they are going to be in here soon -- turning over the soil, creating pits, trapping water, trapping nutrients, creating places for plants to generate and grow. And this forest here is really a product of that -- just that we haven't had bilbies in it for 100 years.

JD: So welcome back bilbies and congratulations to the soil of Pilliga forest. It's the rekindling of an old friendship and you're starting from scratch.

[Music]

Wisdom the Albatross

Guest: Beth Flint

JD: She is at least 68 years old and she just laid another egg which is at least the 37th time she's done that. Wisdom the Laysan Albatross is the oldest known wild bird in the world. So every time she returns to her home in Midway Atoll, west of Hawaii, it is cause for celebration by the biologists who study her. And Wisdom has just flown back to her birthplace for the winter. Beth Flint is a biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. She has been following the adventures of Wisdom for years. We reached Ms. Flint in Honolulu.

CO: Beth how well do you know Wisdom?

BETH FLINT: Well I have known her as Wisdom since probably about 2006. I'm sure I walked by her prior to that but we didn't know that she was an important bird until about 2004 or 2005.

CO: What has brought her to the attention of you and others who have been following her so closely for all these years?

BF: Well it's such a nice intergenerational story. People have been banding, putting metal rings, on albatrosses at Midway Atoll for almost 100 years. And so she was part of one of the early cohorts of birds that were banded by a wonderful scientist named Chandler S. Robbins. Back in 1956 he went out to Midway and banded about 8,400 albatrosses. And then in 2002 when he was already quite old, I can't remember exactly how old he was, because we were working on a new Demography Project to figure out the population structure and survival of albatrosses in the face of all the challenges that they face -- we invited him back out to the colony to see if he could find any of his old friends and to see what his pioneering work had spawned. And so he went out and even though he was a fairly elderly fellow at the time, he was just insatiable. He would go out every day and capture birds and read their bands and record them. And so one of the birds whose bands he read turns out to be this animal that we now call Wisdom.

CO: So I understand Chandler Robbins had first banded this bird Wisdom in 1956 and then found her again when he was out there.

BF: Right.

CO: And now Wisdom has outlived Chandler Robins -- I understand who died in 2017 the age of 98. And so Wisdom you know estimate because of all this is 68 years old and she has had another egg. She's about to have another offspring. Right?

BF: That's correct. She is incubating right now.

CO: 37th (offspring) right?

BF: Well that's just an estimate based on what we know about how often Laysan albatrosses breed. And so she is a little bit exceptional among some of the birds out there in that she has not taken a year off for a number of years. Lots of these birds will skip a year every once in a while perhaps related to a whole body molt or just because it just seems like it's not going to be possible that year because of ocean conditions -- we don't know exactly why. But she has been very steadfast in coming back every year and breeding so that indicates that she has figured out how to make a living in the North Pacific and how to make babies.

CO: [Chuckles] As a human the thought of having another chick at the age of 68 would not appeal. But we know her to be the oldest known wild bird. But we don't know if she is the oldest wild bird. But now don't albatrosses take on partners for life? Don't they have mates that they stay with through all of their years?

BF: Yes. That is the belief. Now we certainly have the situation where one of the pair fails to come back because it's been killed at sea by interacting with long line fishery or some kind of mishap that causes one of the pair to be no longer available. And then they will re-pair and find a new mate. But sometimes it takes a couple of years because they wait and then they have to go through the courtship and pair bonding that they would have with a new mate. But both members of the pair are affiliated or tied to a nest site and that's how they find each other each year.

CO: And does Wisdom have a mate that she comes back with?

BF: Yes Wisdom has a mate that was first banded and identified in 2006 so presumably she has had other mates previous but we don't know as much about them yet -- they weren't banded birds and again we weren't tracking her life as closely. But her mate now also has a name Akeakamai which is a really nice Hawaiian word that means 'lover of wisdom.' I like that name [chuckles].

CO: Are you hoping, expecting, to see Wisdom back next year?

BF: We definitely always hope because she has provided a wonderful insight into longevity and albatrosses that also because so many people in the world take notice each year and pay attention to these beautiful national wildlife refuges and the albatross populations up there because of her. So yeah we would hate to see her not show up.

CO: Albatross is the subject of poetry and literature and song and everything. Just magnificent creatures. Ms. Flint I really appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

BF: Well thank you so much.

CO: Bye.

JD: Beth Flint is a biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. We reached her in Honolulu.

[Music]

The lead

JD: Now, Quote/Unquote. The great creative non-fiction writer John McPhee once wrote and I quote "The lead... should be a flashlight that shines down into the story." Mr. McPhee was referring to the lead paragraph of an article. But newspapers don't always heed that advice. Often, their leads cram every single fact of the story into the opening paragraph -- on the premise, I guess, that that is the only paragraph that people are going to read which is fair and probably true. It's just that the results can be confusing, unclear, and syntactically nightmarish. But once in a while a writer does achieve total clarity, gets all the pertinent facts in, and uses the lead as a flashlight. For example the unnamed journalist from the British Press Association who covered Queen Elizabeth's recent visit to the oldest children's charity in the UK. Here's the lead "A meeting with the Queen was so overwhelming for one little boy that he'd dropped to the floor and crawled out of the nearest door shouting 'bye' to amused onlookers."

[Music]

Part 3: These long-lost Yiddish songs from WW II tell tales of Jewish resistance and survival

Encore: WWII Yiddish Songs

Guest: Anna Shternshis

JD: When Anna Shternshis stumbled across a book of old lyrics in a Ukrainian museum she knew they were special. What she did not know at first was that they are songs written by Jewish people in the Soviet Union during the Second World War and that they were believed to be lost. She also didn't know until today that her discovery would lead to a Grammy nomination. But it did. Today the album that brought those songs back to life "Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the world music category. We're looking back at some of the program's most memorable interviews from 2018. So now an encore presentation of Carol's conversation with Anna Shternshis -- a historian and a professor of Yiddish Studies at the University of Toronto, which originally aired in March.

CO: Anna, first of all welcome to As It Happens.

ANNA SHTERNSHIS: Thank you. It's such an honour to be here.

CO: It's great to have you in the studio. These songs, this production you have is so remarkable, but never could have happened if not for finding the actual songs. So just tell us how did you come about finding this material?

AS: So I was working on a book on the history of Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union during the Holocaust. And I went to Kiev to look for some materials and among things I was reading I stumbled upon this collection of Yiddish songs. Something seemed off about those songs, they were about Stalin, they were about fighting against Hitler they were about Central Asia. These were songs in Yiddish I've never seen before. Now it's not unusual for me to not recognize things and not to know things, but I've done some work in the past Yiddish songs of the Holocaust and I was familiar with collections from Warsaw Ghetto from Lodz Ghetto from Vilna Ghetto, from places where Jews the were during the war — most mostly died, but none of the songs looked similar. So then I contacted my colleague Dr. Bret Werb from the United States Holocaust Museum, he works as an ethnomusicologist, and I asked him what's with these songs. Why don’t I recognize a single one of them. And he says to me well you don't recognize a single one of them because they're unique. They have not been known before.

CO: But now not known before, was there any knowledge that there was a cache somewhere hidden that had been lost, perhaps lost forever? Was there some knowledge that there might be something like this?

AS: There was a knowledge that this ethnomusicologists named my Moisei Beregovsky conducted an extensive fieldwork during World War II in Ukraine and in other parts of the Soviet Union collecting Yiddish songs, we knew about that. We also knew that Beregovsky was arrested in 1950. And that his the materials were confiscated from him and never came back. So there was a consensus among historians that the collection existed but it's now lost. When I saw this text it turned out that they were not lost. They actually survived.

CO: And what did they look like? Are they typed up, are they written?

AS: So most of the stuff is handwritten on very bad paper. Some of it typed on a typewriter. The typewriter is also not great because the letter R and M were not typed very well so it's very pale and it's very hard to read. Also some documents looked like letters — and they were letters. And in fact this is the most astonishing part of that collection. These were letters written by Jewish Red Army soldiers during the war when they went through battles that they went through and they wrote songs about that in Yiddish and they wanted these songs somehow to reach Beregovsky, to reach someone. So they mailed them and those envelopes. And we have those letters. And the other part of those letters, it's even more heartbreaking, because they came from places where Jews lived under the occupation. And sometimes — they’re written 1942. In 1942 is the last year some Jews lived — most Jews in Ukraine were killed by the end of 1942. And we have songs written sometimes by children, sometimes by women from these places on pieces of paper. And I think what happened was that they crumpled this paper and just threw it somewhere hoping that even though they're going on the march somewhere, they know they're not coming back, but they're hoping maybe somebody will find that document. And astonishingly someone did, and someone mailed it to the right address during the war and these are the documents in that collection.

CO: When you found this, when you saw this and you suddenly really slowly began to realize what you had, what did you feel from that? What energy was coming from that archive?

AS: So you know it was a mix of emotions. At first when I was just trying to read the songs and I was recognizing things like I know Hitler is an idiot. The Germans are running away with their pants down, like that kind of stuff, I was laughing. And I don't know if it's the right the motion to talk about when you stumble across something like this, but you read the songs and start laughing because these are humorous songs. Then I started reflecting on it and then I was thinking it's quite a story that these people lived through what they lived through and they wrote humorous songs about this. But then when I started finding other things like a song recorded from a 10-year-old orphan who sings about losing his parents and never seeing them again, or a song written by a teenager in the ghetto who writes this song when his parents are killed. You know, it's just it's like it hits you in the head because you can relate to these children, you know, I have kids that age myself, and somehow it's no longer just the historical text but it's something personal, something that really speaks to you.

CO: And I'm going to get to how it ended up becoming this album called Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II. And I think people are now wanting to hear something. So I want to play a bit of a song called Kazakhstan and maybe you can set that up for us.

AS: So this song was first recorded from an anonymous person, who was probably a refugee, a Polish-Jewish refugee who ended up in Kazakhstan. Now Kazakhstan is a republic in Central Asia, a part of the Soviet Union, and during the war it became this meeting place for Jews of all sorts of backgrounds. Some people were deported from eastern parts of Poland in 1939-1940 by Joseph Stalin. Some people, Soviet Jews, were evacuated to Kazakhstan when the war started in the Soviet Union in 1941. So they were actually brought there by trains as part of Soviet industry. And yet some other people were just Soviet Jewish gulag prisoners who were also there. So suddenly all these Jews found themselves in a place they know nothing about. They didn't have a real Jewish community before the war. And by 1945 they understood that this place, which was essentially a prison for them before, was the place where it gave them rescue. Let's hear a bit of Kazakhstan.

SOUNDCLIP

KAZAKHSTAN: SOPHIE MILMAN SINGING IN YIDDISH ACCOMPANIED BY PIANO AND TRUMPET

CO: That is just haunting. And she's singing about mountains, she's going to sing in a moment about Kazakhstan and the beauty and asking the mountains what do you want from me. How can we find a place where we are not hated? And that voice of course is Sophie Milman. For people who don't know, Juno award-winning singer. How did she get involved with this?

AS: So, Sophie Milman, many years ago was a student in my class on Soviet Jewish history and that's how I met her. And when when we decided to work on this project from this archive I called her and said “Sophie, would you be interested in singing this material?” So Sophie looked at that stuff, she was very busy at the time and we had a meeting and they told her the story of this material and I said to her “You know, there is a song about Kazakhstan and I don't know we don't have a tune for that yet because it came without the tune. And it's hard to make sense of it, it’s so long, it's all over the place,” and I said I don't know. And she said to me “You know, I really want to think about Kazakhstan because Kazakhstan is a very special place for my family history.” Her grandmother survived the war in Kazakhstan and her grandfather served as a Red Army soldier, not in Kazakhstan. So she said to me “I'm very busy. I don't know Yiddish, but I am really interested in this project because it actually talks about my history, the history of my family and also Canadian history.” A story of Russian speakers, of Russian Jews who now live in Canada and whose legacy and whose heritage is so rarely discussed in a meaningful way. So she felt that she could bring her talent to this and give voice to people who wrote the songs, people who collected the songs. And in some way even give voice to the histories of Russian Jews who live in Canada today. And that's why Kazakhstan became what it became — a song that really captivates you and the song that you can't stop hearing.

CO: And then this last the last part of it which we didn't hear just now but the words are, “Please be our welcome guest,” — this is Kazakhstan's speaking, “You are our brother dear Jew. Even though the enemy hates you so much you will be my beloved brother and our family.” So it ends on this note of joy. And of course Yiddish was the common language of all these different people who ended up there from all these different places where they were banished from or escaped from. They had this common language of Yiddish.

AS: It was the language that Soviet Jews did not really use as much. In the 30s they were assimilating very quickly, so they used to speak Russian more. But they needed Yiddish in order to communicate of all these Polish Jews who were there. So in an unexpected way this whole Central Asia — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan — all these places became centres of Yiddish culture, world Yiddish culture in 1943.

CO: You're listening to As It Happens. I have in studio with me Anna Shternshis and we're talking about this remarkable new album that she has been part of putting together because she discovered the songs. It's called Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II. One of the things about them is that the songs didn't come with music. They came with lyrics. How did you find the tunes to put to it? How did you make those decisions?

AS: Right. So about 10 per cent of the songs came with some tunes and were very grateful for that. There was scribbled next to the actual lyrics, but the majority of them did not have any music. So I enlisted the help of a very talented musician, artist and composer Psoy Korolenko. He is a performer of Yiddish music, Soviet music, Russian music, mostly the music that he writes himself. But I approached him and I said, “Look here's these songs that are very Soviet. They're very pro-Stalin, nobody has ever heard them before, they’re in Yiddish and they have no tunes.” And I said to him, “I want to talk about the songs at the conference here in Toronto at U of T.” And I said that like it's kind of boring to just talk about songs. And he says to me “You know, if you want I can just write tunes for those that are missing them.” And I said “Really, write tunes the songs?” Like for me it's complete rocket science right. And then we looked at the texts together. I selected the ones that I thought interesting that he selected from those that I thought was interesting, those that would be interesting to the broader audience, because you know academics are the worst about deciding what's interesting to other people. [LAUGHTER]

AS: So once we made those decisions he started looking at the texts. And sometimes he was able to recognize that this was a parody to an Yiddish existing song. Sometimes it was not clear what it was about. Reminded him of a Soviet song of that time, and something in the note said that people often use popular Soviet music. So with that information he approached the material and just used the leap of imagination in order to get that right. And once I found the tune actually after he did that and it turns out that he was right.

CO: Oh my gosh. I wait to hear another one. This is Yoshke from Odessa. We're going to listen to this first and get in and get you to tell us what it's about.

SOUNDCLIP

MAN SINGING IN YIDDISH ACCOMPANIED BY PIANO AND VIOLIN

CO: Tell us a bit about that.

AS: Sergei Erdenko is the vocalist here, but the tune was written by Mikhail Glinka a famous Russian composer of the 19th century.

CO: It’s Skylark?

AS: Exactly. The reason why Psoy decided to match it to Skylark was that that the song was extremely popular in Russia in the 30s. And there was a tenor named Sergei Lemeshev who was known as a Soviet sex symbol, like he was handsome and he sang that song that was a household name. And we thought about the person who is singing that song, Yoshke from Odessa the soldier who was fighting this horrible war.

CO: He's a Red Army soldier?

AS: Red Army soldier who is killing as many Germans as he can because they destroyed his family, his community, his everything that was important to him. He sings a song about that. And we were thinking about that Yoshke and we thought well he probably wanted to imagine himself as a Lemeshev singing that song.

CO: The words are very violent in this and they talk about — we heard a bit about just going after the Germans with a knife — but it becomes more intense bashing the fascists without care, not a bit of respect. Mutilated bodies fall to Earth, showing no mercy — that he gave Hitler a strong lesson to remember him by what. Why is it a number of the songs are like this is filled with this is violence towards the Germans? Tell us about the significance of that?

AS: This rage against the German army is the rage of a soldier fighting the war. We get that raw emotion only from materials, from songs like this written during the time of the war. Because once the war is over people start moving on, they start thinking about how they make sense of their lives now, and they talk about will remember what happened we should talk about what happened. But it's no longer about the violence because it's all about making peace and continuing. But when we look at the songs written in the 40s these Jews write about this and sing that right as they begin to find out about the destruction of their communities. Of 6 million Jews who were killed during the war, two-and-a-half million were killed in the Soviet Union. And the Red Army soldiers were the first ones to discover the scope of destruction. So they go to Ukraine, sometimes the places where they were from, they don't find a single Jew in them. And I think once we translate these words today, and we start looking at these materials today we start asking questions. These are too violent. But I think we owe it to the memory of these people and to our own history to know the songs and to know what it was like for them and to hear the songs in order to appreciate how awful the war is.

CO: It also counters that that collective image of Jews being helpless victims, that they were just marched into camps, that they couldn't resist — that there was a passivity to it. And this contradicts that image, it gives this ferocious fierceness to the soldiers who were fighting the Nazis.

AS: Right. And I'm so glad you're bringing it up because that image of Jews being led to slaughter, it's an image of after the war. They didn't know that this was going to be the story so during the war they are fighting against that and that's exactly what they want. They want revenge against those who killed after them.

CO: After war ended though, Joseph Stalin — and you mentioned there's a lot of pro-Stalin lyrics, but that didn't last, right, Stalin’s support of the Jews — and it got uglier and uglier. Did the scholars know when they were trying to get the songs out was their it was their knowledge of what had happened after Stalin?

AS: So the last song of the collection was recorded in 1947 and that is before Stalin turned against Jews. Stalin who the songs glorified so vividly and so enthusiastically, turned his head against Jews. And now these materials were seized and that Beregovsky was put on trial for that. I suspect, I don't know for sure, but this work during the war, some songs from the collection were used to accuse him of Jewish nationalism. In other words, even though there was a lot of Stalin in them, there was also a lot of unapologetic claim for revenge for Jews and also unapologetic claim to remember Jewish victims. And to us that doesn't sound like anything controversial. But at the time there was a discussion — and believe it or not it's still a discussion in today's Russia — whether one should remember Jewish victims of the war separately. In other words, is there a need to remember the Holocaust? And that in these songs, there's no question that Jews are being targeted and that was controversial for Stalin.

CO: I'm in studio with historian Anna Shternshis and we're talking about this album Yiddish Glory. And these are the stories of Soviet Jews during the Holocaust. And we're going to hear — this is the last one we're going to hear, Shelakhmones Hitlern — and did I get even close to getting that?

AS: Yes, Shelakhmones Hitlern.

SOUNDCLIP

MAN SINGING IN YIDDISH

CO: Sounds very playful, very playful but tell us what’s going on?

AS: So the song recites all the enemies of Jewish people that tried to kill them but ended up being dead instead. So one of the names cited there is Pavel Krushevan, who is an alleged author of this text called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which inspired actually a lot of violence against Jews. All these people promised to hang on a tree. And that's the reference to how Haman, an evil minister from Persia who conspired to kill Jews ended up — he was hanged on a tree. His death is celebrated during the holiday of Purim which just finished celebrating last month. Purim is a time for joy, for laughter.

CO: Of survival. This is a King who tried to exterminate them, as so many others have since, and they survived it gloriously.

AS: And, you know it's interesting about that because Soviet Jews by the time of 1945 were already non-religious like so they were not celebrating Purim. In fact, they didn't connect their Jewishness with Judaism at all. And somehow we see Purim coming back to the songs. And even the gravestones of Jews who were murdered or otherwise died during the war, they often put died from the hand of Hitler The Haman. And these names they used interchangeably. And again, we learned that only reading from the documents from the songs written during the time of war because later that reference goes away.

CO: I’ll read a bit of a translation that you’ve provided for that song, because you'll see how that contradicts with that sort of — almost like you want to tap your foot and dance. It’s saying you “You've burned my joyful home and disgraced my daughters. You’ve trampled my infants and sworn to get rid of me too. Your anger dreams are wild and silly. We are alive and we will survive no matter what. Your bleary end will be on Haman’s tree while the Jewish people live on and on. It's just a great song the way it ends. What did these songs mean for you Anna?

AS: Well, you know, first as any historian, I was very excited to find it because it was new. It seemed to me that they're going to rewrite the way we understand Jewish experience in the Soviet Union during World War II. I think it's going to make a difference in how we understand the history of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. And I think one of the findings, for example, is that the fact that people are writing and singing songs about what they witnessed in Yiddish. Another academic finding was that, you know, I interviewed almost 500 Soviet-born Jews from my other book on the Soviet Jewish life under Stalin, and I was interested in music, I specifically asked them about songs that they remembered. Not a single person who I interviewed in Canada, in New York, in Germany and in Russia, could sing a single song about the war in Yiddish. Not one. So if we write history based only on those oral testimonies, and you know I interviewed 500 people a lot of people — and if not one of them remembers the song. Any responsible historian would say people didn't sing in Yiddish during the war because you know nobody remembers anything. Here we have this document that says well this wasn't true. So that's the academic finding. But the more personal finding, and the more kind of connected to the significance of this material, I kept thinking about Moisei Beregovsky, this and ethnomusicologist who collected this music during the war. You know the war is going on, he doesn't know what's going to happen, if he's going to survive it, if his institute is going to survive, if his people are going to survive. And maybe something goes on in his head and says maybe you should be doing something else. Maybe you should be fighting in the army, or maybe you keep doing this. After the war all this is for nothing. The book never comes out. He goes to jail. He comes out from jail, he sits at home and his grand-daughter, who I spoke to lives in Ukraine now, she says to me she remembers how her grandmother, his wife was yelling at him for working because she says you just like to waste your time nobody will ever need that. And he sits and writes all that, no matter what he dies in the 60s and he thinks that he's done what he could for his archive. But he thinks that this part of his work is gone forever. I think it's important for me was the sense of this collegiality of this person I've never met, you know, who lived so long ago, who's dead and who's done such important work. And I think about this all the time. What does it all mean? All our academic research will anyone ever care? And it was important for me to bring that research, not just for the sake of relevance today, but also for the sake of honouring that scholar who lost so much because he persevered in doing this work and never got any recognition. But now his songs are here As It Happens and people are going to hear them from the radio. And somehow it comes back with the title of Yiddish Glory. And I think about that a lot and that's I think the significance, more personal significance of the project to me.

CO: I mean, you have done him a great service, but you have done an enormous service for all those people in the middle of horror and pain who had to write the song down and crumple it up and toss it over a fence, or mail it to somebody. All those people have done the service for. Anna it's such a pleasure to meet you and to hear this, thank you.

AS: It's so great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

JD: That was Anna Shternshis speaking with Carol after the release of the album "Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II" back in March. Today, that album was nominated for a Grammy award.

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December 7, 2018 Episode Transcript

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