16: "I was a British-Jewish soldier who witnessed the liberation of Belsen concentration camp"

This episode is dedicated to the 60,000 British Jews who fought for their country during 1939 to 1945.

One of them, Stanley Fisher (100-years-old in August 2024), is my first cousin Samuel Posaner's great-grandfather - and we met by chance at Samuel’s Bar Mitzvah in Birmingham in the very 75th anniversary week he landed on Normandy’s beaches in 1944.

Stanley is living history.

Not only a teenage soldier arriving in Arromanches in the week of D-Day, he also fought at Arnhem, a terrible and bloody defeat for the allies - and then witnessed the shocking aftermath of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

He says it gave him nightmares, silencing him from telling his wartime story for decades.

Eventually though, a desire to recount his experiences prompted him to speak up - for the benefit of the next generation.

It's a profound privilege to bring his story to a wider audience.

With thanks to Ben and Rachel Posaner, Esmond Rosen and of course, Stanley who came to the Bar Mitzvah with his wife Evelyn, whom he married in the summer of 1946. That's 73 years! (Update: Sadly Evelyn died a few months later).

By the way, Bar Mitzvah boy Samuel's great grandmother, Olga Posaner's own Holocaust testimony is available here (she was my grandma). It's "from Vienna's tyranny to Birmingham's freedom".

Jonny Gould’s Jewish State is brought to you with Dangoor Education.

And you can help me too by making a small donation the size of a cup of coffee at http://www.ko-fi.com

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