Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and this is yet another one of our sort
Speaker 1: of casual Friday minisods. Yeah, we talked this week about
Speaker 1: Frieda Belinfonta, who is to me a remarkable and inspiring
Speaker 1: woman to talk about for a number of reasons. One
Speaker 1: of the things though, that I really really wanted to
Speaker 1: mention in this this little minisode, is the way she
Speaker 1: felt about her own sexual identity, because it's unusual and
Speaker 1: wonderful in that she unlike many people. We often hear
Speaker 1: stories of people who realize that they are not heterosexual,
Speaker 1: or that they just feel different and they can't identify why,
Speaker 1: and they go through a period of of questioning and
Speaker 1: self doubt and trying to figure out if there is
Speaker 1: something wrong with them, or if there is, you know,
Speaker 1: why are they different from everyone else. Frieda never seemed
Speaker 1: to experience this. She just accepted this is how I
Speaker 1: feel about other people, this is who I've attracted to,
Speaker 1: this is my place in the world. And she just
Speaker 1: didn't go through that stre that you know, difficult journey
Speaker 1: of self doubt about any of it, which is astonishing
Speaker 1: for a woman in the early nine Yeah, when she
Speaker 1: was living especially yeah she I mean even when there's
Speaker 1: that documentary that I mentioned in the show, and it
Speaker 1: was one of my sources called but I Was a
Speaker 1: Girl and it's about her life, and they interview her sister,
Speaker 1: Renee in that, and her sister is also very like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, everybody was in love with her, didn't matter
Speaker 1: if they were a boy or a girl. All the
Speaker 1: kids just flocked to her, And it seems like none
Speaker 1: of them ever felt any sort of like oddness about
Speaker 1: her being a lesbian. It was never something they even
Speaker 1: talked about her question. They just were like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: freed to ye, which is really, like I said, it
Speaker 1: was refreshing and surprising, and also I wish everyone walked
Speaker 1: with that level of self confidence. Sure, yeah, I I
Speaker 1: you know, I know because you were the person who
Speaker 1: researched this episode, so like you have more of the
Speaker 1: in depth knowledge than I do at this point. One
Speaker 1: of the things that came up early in the episode
Speaker 1: is how when she asked her father about religion, her
Speaker 1: her dad was basically like read a lot and figure
Speaker 1: out what makes sense to you rather than trying to
Speaker 1: like prescribe any particular thing. And so I wonder if
Speaker 1: that kind of mindset was colored all through their family
Speaker 1: life and their upbringing, which I think would have made
Speaker 1: it a little easier for a person to have that
Speaker 1: level of self awareness and not as much like internal
Speaker 1: conflict about it. Yeah, I think um. She mentioned in
Speaker 1: in her long form interview she did late in life
Speaker 1: a similar thing where she was talking to a woman
Speaker 1: who had a different ideology from her, and they were
Speaker 1: trying to understand each other's point of view, and she
Speaker 1: was asking the woman questions and the woman was like, well,
Speaker 1: I was told blah blah blah blah bla. And she
Speaker 1: was like, no, I don't want to hear what you
Speaker 1: were told. I want to know what you think and
Speaker 1: feel about this subject, because to her, that was always
Speaker 1: what guided her in life, which I think was very
Speaker 1: much nurtured by both of her parents, but her father
Speaker 1: in particular, like, you're smart enough, you can make your
Speaker 1: way in the world. How do you think or feel
Speaker 1: that's perfectly valid, which is just again it's a little
Speaker 1: bit mind blowing. We don't meet many people in history
Speaker 1: that have this level of complete comfort with their their
Speaker 1: sexual identity so early on when it is counter to
Speaker 1: what society would tell you as normal. Also, ma'am, she
Speaker 1: was a cool lady I think about. She also mentioned
Speaker 1: at one point, Um, it was another thing that didn't
Speaker 1: make it into the episode, that she recognized that she
Speaker 1: had a certain level of like addiction to danger, uh,
Speaker 1: and that was sort of what drove her. And she
Speaker 1: was like, I never wanted to like do illegal things
Speaker 1: for the sake of being a criminal, but I did
Speaker 1: want I was perfectly comfortable doing illegal things if I
Speaker 1: thought I was doing something for what's right, And like
Speaker 1: that was part of what drew her to the resistance,
Speaker 1: was she was like, great, I can get all of
Speaker 1: the adrenaline rush, and I also feel like I am
Speaker 1: working for a very worthy cause. Cool. And she talked
Speaker 1: about how music was sort of her one outlet that
Speaker 1: didn't require her to kind of brush up against danger
Speaker 1: to feel very um alive and emotional, because to her,
Speaker 1: music could convey everything a human could possibly feel and
Speaker 1: elevate it in a way that was really almost spiritual. Um.
Speaker 1: But that she did recognize she had this tendency to
Speaker 1: just be drawn to difficulty, almost like a moth to flame,
Speaker 1: which is also interesting. Yeah, she's fascinating. She's the best. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I got to that whole thing where she's talking
Speaker 1: about their mission to set fire to the records office, Uh,
Speaker 1: this goes back to what I was saying initially that
Speaker 1: you know, she one of the other co conspirators involved
Speaker 1: in that was a gay man and he did not
Speaker 1: clearly grow up with the level of comfort with his
Speaker 1: identity that she had, and she was like, he was
Speaker 1: so capable and smart and he just needed somebody to
Speaker 1: tell him, you're as good as anybody else to become
Speaker 1: somebody really amazing. And it was interesting to me that
Speaker 1: not only did she grow up with that like completely yep,
Speaker 1: I am who I am, I know who I am,
Speaker 1: and I'm good with it attitude, but she recognized when
Speaker 1: other people were lacking it and needed her help, which
Speaker 1: is sort of beautiful anyway. She's spectacular. Yeh, frieda forever Tracy.
Speaker 1: I really really loved talking to the Hot Fou team
Speaker 1: this week because I, as I mentioned in those interviews,
Speaker 1: I am so charmed by Free, de bel and Fonta
Speaker 1: and it's just lovely to get to talk to other
Speaker 1: people similarly charmed by her story, and also people who
Speaker 1: are working on a project that I think is so
Speaker 1: important and such an important part of how we can
Speaker 1: teach history, especially considering we have reached that sort of
Speaker 1: critical moment related to the Holocaust when there are not
Speaker 1: that many survivors left. Enough years have passed that the
Speaker 1: people that made it through and lived very full and
Speaker 1: wonderful lives have have passed on from old age and
Speaker 1: in many cases so it's really really lovely, I think,
Speaker 1: to have such a unique way to commemorate their lives
Speaker 1: and to be able to share that story, especially with
Speaker 1: kids who you know, do not have the benefit of,
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps meeting with and speaking with survivors in person,
Speaker 1: which will shift your perception of that whole thing in
Speaker 1: a big way. For sure. If if anybody out there
Speaker 1: has known anyone who has has been through that, it
Speaker 1: made it made it so much more real for me.
Speaker 1: The first time I met a survivor, and the way
Speaker 1: that happened was very random, and it was when I
Speaker 1: was working in a salon and we had um We
Speaker 1: had a number of clients that we I worked in
Speaker 1: the salon here in the South where we had a
Speaker 1: clientele that consisted a lot of mature women who would
Speaker 1: come in every week and get their shampoo set and
Speaker 1: get their hair done, and that was just part of
Speaker 1: their weekly ritual. And there was this one woman that
Speaker 1: I had known for, you know, at that point, like
Speaker 1: probably a year and a half, two years, and I
Speaker 1: saw her every week, and one day she was paying
Speaker 1: for her service, and her as she handed over her
Speaker 1: I don't remember if it was cash or a card
Speaker 1: or whatever, but her sleeve wrote up and I saw
Speaker 1: her number, and it was just it sounds so silly,
Speaker 1: but I had never met anyone who had been a
Speaker 1: survivor up to that point. I was in my early
Speaker 1: twenties still, but it really was very sobering. And then
Speaker 1: she and I talked a lot, and she also had
Speaker 1: a sister in law that also came to the salon
Speaker 1: who had also been through it. It It turned out I
Speaker 1: did not know that there were several women in that
Speaker 1: group that came every single week and got their hair done,
Speaker 1: that we're all survivors, and they all kind of had
Speaker 1: their own little community here in Atlanta, So it was
Speaker 1: I did not ever press them on it, but on
Speaker 1: occasion we would discuss some of it as we got
Speaker 1: to know each other better and became closer. UM, and
Speaker 1: two of them ended up coming to my wedding. But
Speaker 1: it really did sort of uh to me. That's one
Speaker 1: of those touchstone moments in my life where I realized
Speaker 1: that history is a real thing, Like you know it intellectually,
Speaker 1: but to know it kind of in your soul is
Speaker 1: a little bit of a different thing. Yeah. So that's
Speaker 1: one of the many reasons that I want to champion
Speaker 1: this project that the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh does because
Speaker 1: it's so again amazing and important, but also like we
Speaker 1: we cannot afford to lose that history, oh for sure.
Speaker 1: For sure. I think most of my experiences were in
Speaker 1: a more formal setting, so it's like somebody coming to
Speaker 1: our school to speak. UM. And then when I was
Speaker 1: in college, I had a class that I think I've
Speaker 1: talked about and maybe a behind the scenes before that
Speaker 1: was half honored students and half people who were from
Speaker 1: the Center for Creative Retirement at my university UM. And
Speaker 1: so the the class was specifically talking about one specific
Speaker 1: year post World War two, and so it was these
Speaker 1: students who were in college mostly traditionally aged college students
Speaker 1: in the class with uh, with people who had lived
Speaker 1: through this history, and we're now taking some classes as
Speaker 1: in the in their retirement, and so that was a
Speaker 1: much smaller group. And somebody came to speak to the
Speaker 1: class which was only like twenty of us instead of
Speaker 1: us all being an all in a big auditorium. Um
Speaker 1: So that was like a bit of a more personal experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I said, I it saddens me that we
Speaker 1: are losing that oral history being readily accessible from survivors
Speaker 1: as we age past it. But I'm I'm glad and
Speaker 1: very thankful for the survivors who have taken time to
Speaker 1: speak with us. Also, I feel like we should shout
Speaker 1: out to Michael Bernstein, who was on the show at
Speaker 1: one point after he wrote his book about um his
Speaker 1: experience in Auschwitz as a child. I can't imagine what
Speaker 1: it is to live through that and then you tell it. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's got to have its own weight and gravity and
Speaker 1: and pain and difficulty, because even most survivors lost a
Speaker 1: great deal. Uh. So I'm so thankful, and I love
Speaker 1: how passionate Marcel and Jackie and Bertie were about making
Speaker 1: sure that these stories are not just told, but told
Speaker 1: in a way that is new and fresh and engaging. Um,
Speaker 1: we were lucky enough to get a rough of Freeda's
Speaker 1: story as they were working on it, and it's told
Speaker 1: in such an interesting way in terms of juxtaposing the
Speaker 1: language of music with a visual narrative, and I cannot
Speaker 1: wait for people to see it. So I hope everyone
Speaker 1: orders it and enjoys it, because I also just love
Speaker 1: comic books and comic book art, and I like any
Speaker 1: time that it's used in a really interesting way. So again,
Speaker 1: we're going to thank them a million times over. And
Speaker 1: I hope that you guys enjoyed those interviews. Stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in History Class is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio is How Stuff Works. For more podcasts For my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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