#36: Rediscovering the past to shape the future – with special guest Jim Klein

Jonathan Widder | Posted on April 23, 2024 |

In this special, personal episode, we continue our conversation about history with a special guest and a special project in which Jonathan’s father recently rediscovered the story of Kurt Klein and Gerda Weissmann Klein: two Jews who left Germany during and after World War II, married and became very well-known in the US due to Gerda’s book “All but my life” – but remained almost unknown in Germany. In this episode, we speak with their son Jim Klein about how his father Kurt saved Oskar Schindler, lessons from his mother for politics today, and the meaning of re-establishing contact with a left-behind part of family history.

Hosts: Ed Crasnick, Jonathan Widder. Editing: Leon Wolf

The photo (private) shows Jim Klein with his father Kurt in 1997.

The Squirrel News Podcast

A German Journalist and a Jewish Comic discuss the latest and greatest solution based news stories from around the world. A podcast about the amazing, wildly creative things people are doing to solve our biggest social problems today – from goats helping to fight wildfires to prisons without wardens and guns.

Hosts: Ed Crasnick, Jonathan Widder

Tags: solutions, society, sustainability, social innovation, solutions journalism, constructive journalism.