Sami abu Salem is a Gaza journalist who, like most Gazan Palestinians, has been pursued with his extended family up and down the Strip by Israel's war machine since October, 2023. Sami has reported regularly to broadcaster and film-maker Mike Joseph, and so to the Balfour Project. Earlier this week he sent this voice commentary as news of a ceasefire began to circulate. There was no let-up, however, in the war. In Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, where Sami and his mother, wife and children cowered under Israel’s hovering quadcopters, 13 more Palestinians were killed near his makeshift dwelling as he spoke. Mike Joseph introduces for us Sami’s moving voice report.

Sami abu Salem, fleeing south down Gaza with his family, pursued by the Israeli war machine---bombs, drones, rockets, snipers---finds himself in Rafah. He reports here to Mike Joseph, who is chronicling Sami's plight for the Balfour Project

Credits

Reporter Sami Abu Salem

Presenter Mike Joseph

Pictures Sami Abu Salem

Images

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem

Music

Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor - Micha Wink

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph Producer

Zac Ware Sound Editor

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

This double episode closes the first season of Keys.

With the Hamas invasion and massacre of October 7 2023 leading to the 2023 Israel-Gaza War, this episode brings its historical understanding to the cruel events that are unfolding as we work. We reveal that the horror that fills the news every day has its roots deep in the history of Israel-Palestine.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres reminded the world that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”. This special episode shows how the deeds and decisions of the past are projected on to the screen of today. If we know our history, can that help us to escape it?

PLACE NAMES

When the place names in Keys get confusing, these notes will help.

Mike’s grandparents came from Galicia, a part of eastern Europe on no modern map. Today some of Galicia is southeast Poland, another part is western Ukraine. Galicia no longer exists.

In the last century, many of Galicia’s Jews, Ukrainians and Poles also ceased to exist, violently, as their province was repeatedly ruptured by the front lines of two World Wars, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Before 1918, Galicia was the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s most eastern province. Its capital was Lemberg (German) = Lwów (Polish) = Lviv (Ukrainian).

Three names, but one city.

Further south, Mike’s grandfather grew up in Stanislau (German); left Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1918 for a better life in Germany; deported back to Stanisławów (Polish) in 1938, which became Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1939; killed in Stanislau (German) in 1941.

Before Mike first visited that city in 1999, the Soviet Union renamed it Ivano-Frankovsk (Russian). Today the place where he found his grandfather’s surviving colleagues and allies is called Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrainian).

Five names, but one city.

Fatima Abu Salem grew up in the thriving Palestinian village of Burayr, at crossroads leading to Gaza, Hebron and Beersheba. Today a few ruins of Burayr are surrounded by the fields of Kibbutz Bro’r Hayyil.

Two names, but one place.

Place names matter. How we name places reveals our own histories, identities and yearnings.

CREDITS for this episode

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

Hannah Kleinfeld

Atef Alshaer

Images

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem

Music

Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor - Micha Wink

Sources

Eulogy for Ro’i Rothberg by Moshe Dayan, Avnei Derekh, Tel Aviv 1976, p191; q. in Zertal, Idith, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, Cambridge University Press 2005, p180

Universal International News, 6 August 1956, Suez Crisis

Theodor Meron, A life of learning, American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper No 65, Pittsburgh, 9 May 2008. Memorandum by Legal Adviser, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Theodor Meron) to Political Secretary to the Israeli Prime Minister, 18 Sep 1967

Israeli Kahan Commission Report is main source for the Israel-Falange history. Its Appendix can be accessed at: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4887715-Kahan-Commission-Appendix-Complete-English.html

Ben Gurion, speaking to the Israeli Cabinet, May 24, April 26, May 7, 1953, Israel State Archives; quoted in Tom Segev, A State at Any Cost, 2018, p512

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph Producer

Zac Ware Sound Editor

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

SPEAKERS AND CAST in programme order

Sami Abu Salem, interviewed by Mike Joseph

James Stewart voicing Moshe Dayan, Theodor Meron, BBC World Service Newsreader, Baruch Ben Meir

Rabbi Dr Gerhard Graf voiced by Mark Levene

Lilli Gold voiced by Christine Willison

Hoda Khoury, interviewed by Mike Joseph

Primo Levi voiced by Andrea Brondino

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

Gilad Erdan, Israeli Ambassador to UN

How do people become refugees? What’s it like? Mike Joseph’s aunt became a refugee on her 10th birthday. This is the story of comfortable family life transformed in an instant, narrated by the family’s only survivors. Yet even refugees are not the most unfortunate. Some are trapped, unable to escape, awaiting their fate.

In this epic journey, Mike sets out to uncover his Holocaust inheritance, but is led relentlessly to discovering his Nakba inheritance. It turns out that the two different catastrophes are more connected than he thought possible. In 2023, can both stories be heard and understood?

With unique personal testimony, recordings, letters and memories by those who survived and those who did not, this challenging audio series is devised, dramatised and narrated by broadcaster Mike Joseph.

PLACE NAMES

When the place names in Keys get confusing, these notes will help.

Mike’s grandparents came from Galicia, a part of eastern Europe on no modern map. Today some of Galicia is southeast Poland, another part is western Ukraine. Galicia no longer exists.

In the last century, many of Galicia’s Jews, Ukrainians and Poles also ceased to exist, violently, as their province was repeatedly ruptured by the front lines of two World Wars, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Before 1918, Galicia was the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s most eastern province. Its capital was Lemberg (German) = Lwów (Polish) = Lviv (Ukrainian).

Three names, but one city.

Further south, Mike’s grandfather grew up in Stanislau (German); left Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1918 for a better life in Germany; deported back to Stanisławów (Polish) in 1938, which became Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1939; killed in Stanislau (German) in 1941.

Before Mike first visited that city in 1999, the Soviet Union renamed it Ivano-Frankovsk (Russian). Today the place where he found his grandfather’s surviving colleagues and allies is called Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrainian).

Five names, but one city.

Fatima Abu Salem grew up in the thriving Palestinian village of Burayr, at crossroads leading to Gaza, Hebron and Beersheba. Today a few ruins of Burayr are surrounded by the fields of Kibbutz Bro’r Hayyil.

Two names, but one place.

Place names matter. How we name places reveals our own histories, identities and yearnings.

CREDITS for this episode

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

Hannah Kleinfeld

Atef Alshaer

Images

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem

Music

Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor - Micha Wink

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph Producer

Zac Ware Sound Editor

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

SPEAKERS AND CAST in programme order

Lilli Gold interviewed by USC Shoah Foundation, © 1998 USC Shoah Foundation. From the archive of USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education http://sfi.usc.edu/

Peter Kirsten as Leipzig policeman

Rosa Gold interviewed by Mike Joseph

George May as Israel Gold

In 1938 Britain and the USA call an international conference to rescue Jewish refugees from Hitler. The world refuses to open its doors, a humanitarian disaster that clears the way for Hitler’s Final Solution. But astonishingly, Zionists attending the conference see this as an achievement. How could that be?

Episode 8 of KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance released on 25 October 2023, and now available on all platforms.

In this epic journey, Mike sets out to uncover his Holocaust inheritance, but is led relentlessly to discovering his Nakba inheritance. It turns out that the two different catastrophes are more connected than he thought possible. In 2023, can both stories be heard and understood?

With unique personal testimony, recordings, letters and memories by those who survived and those who did not, this challenging audio series is devised, dramatised and narrated by broadcaster Mike Joseph.

PLACE NAMES

When the place names in Keys get confusing, these notes will help.

Mike’s grandparents came from Galicia, a part of eastern Europe on no modern map. Today some of Galicia is southeast Poland, another part is western Ukraine. Galicia no longer exists.

In the last century, many of Galicia’s Jews, Ukrainians and Poles also ceased to exist, violently, as their province was repeatedly ruptured by the front lines of two World Wars, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Before 1918, Galicia was the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s most eastern province. Its capital was Lemberg (German) = Lwów (Polish) = Lviv (Ukrainian).

Three names, but one city.

Further south, Mike’s grandfather grew up in Stanislau (German); left Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1918 for a better life in Germany; deported back to Stanisławów (Polish) in 1938, which became Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1939; killed in Stanislau (German) in 1941.

Before Mike first visited that city in 1999, the Soviet Union renamed it Ivano-Frankovsk (Russian). Today the place where he found his grandfather’s surviving colleagues and allies is called Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrainian).

Five names, but one city.

Fatima Abu Salem grew up in the thriving Palestinian village of Burayr, at crossroads leading to Gaza, Hebron and Beersheba. Today a few ruins of Burayr are surrounded by the fields of Kibbutz Bro’r Hayyil.

Two names, but one place.

Place names matter. How we name places reveals our own histories, identities and yearnings.

CREDITS for this episode

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

Hannah Kleinfeld

Atef Alshaer

Images

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem

Music

Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor - Micha Wink

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph Producer

Zac Ware Sound Editor

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

SPEAKERS AND CAST in programme order

James Stewart as Joseph Goebbels and voice of Der Stürmer

George May as Israel Gold

Lilli Gold interviewed by USC Shoah Foundation, © 1998 USC Shoah Foundation. From the archive of USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education http://sfi.usc.edu/

Andrea Brondino as Monsignor Giuseppe di Meglio

Richard Tebboth as David Ben Gurion

Rosa Gold interviewed by Mike Joseph

Alice Gold as young Lilli Gold

Mick Napier as Henryk Ehrlich

Peter Kirsten as Leipzig policeman

In Episode 7, when Nazi Germany excludes Jews from citizenship, Israel Gold, Mike Joseph’s grandfather, is forced to consider emigrating to Palestine. He learns Hebrew and Arabic, because his kind of Zionism seeks a bi-national state of all its inhabitants. But in 1937, the British Government reveals a different plan: a Jewish state, with its native Palestinian population removed by force. How will Zionism react, and what will Israel Gold do?

In this epic journey, Mike sets out to uncover his Holocaust inheritance, but is led relentlessly to discovering his Nakba inheritance. It turns out that the two different catastrophes are more connected than he thought possible. In 2023, can both stories be heard and understood?

With unique personal testimony, recordings, letters and memories by those who survived and those who did not, this challenging audio series is devised, dramatised and narrated by broadcaster Mike Joseph.

PLACE NAMES

When the place names in Keys get confusing, these notes will help.

Mike’s grandparents came from Galicia, a part of eastern Europe on no modern map. Today some of Galicia is southeast Poland, another part is western Ukraine. Galicia no longer exists.

In the last century, many of Galicia’s Jews, Ukrainians and Poles also ceased to exist, violently, as their province was repeatedly ruptured by the front lines of two World Wars, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Before 1918, Galicia was the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s most eastern province. Its capital was Lemberg (German) = Lwów (Polish) = Lviv (Ukrainian).

Three names, but one city.

Further south, Mike’s grandfather grew up in Stanislau (German); left Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1918 for a better life in Germany; deported back to Stanisławów (Polish) in 1938, which became Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1939; killed in Stanislau (German) in 1941.

Before Mike first visited that city in 1999, the Soviet Union renamed it Ivano-Frankovsk (Russian). Today the place where he found his grandfather’s surviving colleagues and allies is called Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrainian).

Five names, but one city.

Fatima Abu Salem grew up in the thriving Palestinian village of Burayr, at crossroads leading to Gaza, Hebron and Beersheba. Today a few ruins of Burayr are surrounded by the fields of kibbutz Bro’r Hayyil.

Two names, but one place.

Place names matter. How we name places reveals our own histories, identities and yearnings.

CREDITS for this episode

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

Hannah Kleinfeld

Atef Alshaer

Images

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem

Music

Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor - Micha Wink

Ba’a M’nucha, Nathan Alterman & Kurt Weill - Gail Stewart soprano, Mike Joseph piano

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph Producer

Zac Ware Sound Editor

Pamela Koehne-Drube Audience and Web Advisor

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

SPEAKERS AND CAST in programme order

Lilli Gold interviewed by USC Shoah Foundation, © 1998 USC Shoah Foundation. From the archive of USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education http://sfi.usc.edu/

George May as Israel Gold

Rosa Gold interviewed by Mike Joseph

Richard Tebboth as David Ben Gurion

Nationalism comes under the spotlight in Episode Six: Israel Gold, Mike Joseph’s grandfather, adds a four-kilo dictionary to his soldier’s kit bag in November 1917. We discover why. Then, without knowing it, Israel Gold becomes Ukrainian, an identity which will through time reveal the strengths of multiculturalism and the perils of ethnic nationalism.

In this epic journey, Mike sets out to uncover his Holocaust inheritance, but is led relentlessly to discovering his Nakba inheritance. It turns out that the two different catastrophes are more connected than he thought possible. In 2023, can both stories be heard and understood? 

With unique personal testimony, recordings, letters and memories by those who survived and those who did not, this challenging audio series is devised, dramatised and narrated by broadcaster Mike Joseph. 

PLACE NAMES 

When the place names in Keys get confusing, these notes will help.

Mike’s grandparents came from Galicia, a part of eastern Europe on no modern map. Today some of Galicia is southeast Poland, another part is western Ukraine. Galicia no longer exists.
In the last century, many of Galicia’s Jews, Ukrainians and Poles also ceased to exist, violently, as their province was repeatedly ruptured by the front lines of two World Wars, genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Before 1918, Galicia was the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s most eastern province. Its capital was Lemberg (German) = Lwów (Polish) = Lviv (Ukrainian). 

Three names, but one city.
Further south, Mike’s grandfather grew up in Stanislau (German); left Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1918 for a better life in Germany; deported back to Stanisławów (Polish) in 1938, which became Stanislaviv (Ukrainian) in 1939; killed in Stanislau (German) in 1941.
Before Mike first visited that city in 1999, the Soviet Union renamed it Ivano-Frankovsk (Russian). Today the place where he found his grandfather’s surviving colleagues and allies is called Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrainian). 

Five names, but one city.

Fatima Abu Salem grew up in the thriving Palestinian village of Burayr, at crossroads leading to Gaza, Hebron and Beersheba. Today a few ruins of Burayr are surrounded by the fields of Kibbutz Bro’r Hayyil.

Two names, but one place.

Place names matter. How we name places reveals our own histories, identities and yearnings.
CREDITS for this episode

Testimony

Testimony and commentary by Mike Joseph, Asha Phillips

Interpreters and Translators

Dina Brandt           

Alex Dunai

Markus Hartmann   

Burkhardt Kolbmuller

Svitlana Kovalyk

Itamar Shapira

Nadia Slobodyan

Hannah Kleinfeld

Atef Alshaer

Images & music

Mike Joseph

Sami Abu Salem

Micha Wink 

Lilli Gold, © 1998 USC Shoah Foundation. From the archive of USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education  http://sfi.usc.edu/

PRODUCTION

Mike Joseph                    Producer

Zac Ware                         Sound Editor

Micha Wink                      Keys Theme & Variations on a Bach Prelude in B minor 

Pamela Koehne-Drube      Audience and Web Advisor

PRESENTERS

Mike Joseph

Asha Phillips

CAST in programme order

Terry Dimmick as car park attendant

George May as Israel Gold