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Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
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Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
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This morning, we're gonna take a look at a father
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I never heard of, No doubt you have never heard of.
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But this man was an absolute hero. I always reference
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this as a hidden figure of history. There are so
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many unsung heroes, particularly when we talk about the Holocaust
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in theaters. Now, it's a documentary called The Last Twins,
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and one of the directors is with me now, Matthew O'Neill.
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It's also co directed and co produced by Perry Peltz,
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who we all know from New York City TV through
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so many years. But joining me this morning is Matthew O'Neill. So,
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The Last Twins actually is the story of a Jewish
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man in Auschwitz who saved dozens of young twins who
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were the victims of experimentation by the evil doctor Joseph Mengela.
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They could have easily died. There were so many other
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twins that died. Just an incredible story. First of all, Matthew,
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how did you come across this story?
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Shelley? Thank you first for the father's day wishes and
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there's no more appropriate day to be talking about Ernod zv. Spiegel.
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And when we first heard this story, we learned about
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it from his daughter Judith Richter, and we weren't sure
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it could possibly be true. And the story was one
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it was so dramatic and so engrossing, and it felt like,
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how could this story have never been told before? And
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we took the elements of the story that Judith had
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shared with us and we brought it to historians at
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the Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial Center in Poland and started asking
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them about this story. And at first they said, we
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never heard this story. We've heard reference to this, but
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this is not a story that we're aware of. It likely,
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you know, there's lots of stories from the Holocausts that
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come out that aren't necessarily rooted in truth. Then they
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called back and they said, this is all checking out.
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Can we have some more information? And the deeper we went,
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and the deeper we went, the more we learned about
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what actually happened at Auschwitz with Ernod's Vishpigel Erno, a
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twin himself was put in charge of the twin boys,
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that the evil, monstrous Joseph Mangla, we're running experiments on.
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Even his own children. This hero's own children did not
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know his story until again an unbelievable story. Tell it,
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Matt sure So.
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In short, as you see told in the film The
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Last Twins by the few surviving twins from that time
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first person testimonies from that period of time, Ernold Spiegel
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was a father figure to about forty young boys between
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the ages of five and twelve who were chosen to
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be experimented on by Joseph Mangel And this Shelley was
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an awful contradiction inside Auschwitz because they were being chosen
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to be experimented on, but by being chosen for experiments,
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they were also saved from immediate murder in the gas chambers.
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And Ernold changed some names and birth dates of boys
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who looked like who were just brothers and named them twins,
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thereby saving their lives. And there's countless excess and risking his,
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risking his For him to do what he did over
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the course of his nearly year when he was interred
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at Auschwitz was incredibly risky. And I think at this
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time when we're all in different ways trying to figure
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out how to be forces for positivity and good in
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our lives. Here is a man, a simple man who
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never wanted to be a hero, who was put in
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an imp possible situation, and then, through a series as
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you see in the film, a series of choices, consistently
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chose to do the right thing and thereby saved dozens
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and dozens of lives.
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And there was at one point, now the twins. First
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of all, there were boy twins who he was in
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charge of. Then there were girl twins, and another person
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was in charge of them. But the boys knew that
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people were being killed, that they knew what was going on. Now,
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remember they're just a little babies themselves, and there's this
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one point where an order comes down where they are
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going to be killed, and they know this and this,
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and this hero risks his own life, tell this story,
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Matt that and saves their lives.
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So Mangelo was actually visiting his sick wife and was
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not at the camp, and the replacement came in and
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lined up these children for execution, and Ernold saw what
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was happening and knew that if he could somehow reach
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Mangola again, these contradictions, because what Mangola was doing was
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inhuman and horrific and awful, but it meant preserving these
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kids' lives. Erno runs through the camp. Imagine a Jewish
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man running through Auschwitz in nineteen forty four, runs to
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the guard tower, risking his life to get word to
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Mangola and stops the execution of these boys moments before
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they were being sent to the.
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Gas chamber, and completely risked his life. I mean, who
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demands to speak to doctor Mengela, let alone a Jewish
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man demanding to speak to doctor Mengelo, who was furious
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because he wanted to continue his experiments. Now, mind you,
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if one of the twins died in experiments and this
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happened all the time, the other twin would them be
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killed and then autopsyed to be studied. I mean, these
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it's just mind boggling what went on in Auschwitz. I
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am speaking with the director, co director, co producer of
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The Last Twins, which you can now see in theaters.
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It is the true story of a hero, a Jewish
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man who was put in charge of the young twins
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who were the victims of experimentation by doctor Joseph Mangela
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at Auschwitz. I referenced earlier Matt that this hero's own family.
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He did not tell his story to his family. It's
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hard for me to wrap my head around why there
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was such shame among those who survived the Holocaust that
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they did not talk about this to their family, so
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many of them until many of them were near death
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themselves and just wanted the story to be told. But
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explain this feeling of shame rather than heroism of surviving Alschwitz,
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there was shame.
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I think there's an unbelievable level of trauma for people
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who went through that experience, and the exact reason why
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he never spoke is hard to discern. I don't even
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think after decades of trying to understand why her father
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never spoke and shared these stories, Judith really knows why,
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you know. She says that there was a there was
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a silence when it came to Auschwitz from him. They
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knew that he was in the camp, but he never
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told any of the stories, none of the stories that
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we're telling here, and not the story Shelley of the
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post Auschwitz liberation where instead of heading off on his
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own as a relatively healthy twenty nine year old man,
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he escorted thirty six boys between the age of five
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and twelve through a war zone right as the Soviet
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Army came in the coldest winter of the twentieth century
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back to Hungary. Then never spoke about it again in
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until one of the twins reached out in the nineteen
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eighties and the story began to reveal itself.
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But wasn't it a family member who actually saw the
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story in a supermarket and grabs what was it? Life
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magazine and happens to see this story about his relative,
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like what it was?
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His father in law? And there was a photo of
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Erno in this Life magazine piece about Mangla And there
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was a side reference that talked about two twins that
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credited this man, Ernod Schpiegel, with saving their lives. And
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it was the smallest of pictures, the smallest of sidebars.
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And Kobe Richter, Judith's husband, saw that in the supermarket
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while they were both studying in Boston and came running
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in and said, Judith, it's your father. It's your father
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in this story. And that's where they began to pull
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out these different details. And Peter Smoji, the boy who
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was pictured in that photo, reached out trying to find
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every Na Spiegel in Tel Aviv at that time to
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make that connection and reconnect, and back to that Father's
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day theme with the man who served as a father
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figure in the most horrific of circumstances at Auschwitz.
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Because they knew, these boys knew that their own families
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were gone, they were dead. This was this was he
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became their father.
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He did. And it's something that we've talked about a lot,
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you know, Perry and I in the edit room and
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with Judith to Peter Simoji, the boy that we're talking about,
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says that one of the kind things that Erno did
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was be very clear from the beginning when he first
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asked where my parents and Ernau explained that they had
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been murdered, And how a child understands that and how
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it shapes them, I don't know, you.
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Know, I've also I've often found it very strange, Matthew
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that so many who survived the Holocaust, and specifically survived
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the death camps, went on to live incredibly long lives.
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What are your thoughts on that?
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Something about resilience, right, something about in their in their
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core that will to live. You know that that interconnection.
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There are certain things that we can't help in our health,
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but that will to live somehow becomes part of our
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overall longevity or overall health. And you see in the
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in the film these boys, and I think of them
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as boys, even though when they were interviewed they were
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all in their eighties and nineties. They still feel when
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they go back to this place like a like a
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cadre of boys who went through this experience together. So
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we all prefer to them as the boys. These these
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boys lived long lives, and I think when we talk
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about the value of a child's life, no matter the
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race or ethnicity or location of that child, these men
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and their children and their children's children are a testimony
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to why it is so important that we work to
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save children's lives day in and day out. Because the
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generations that have come because of Erno's good work. Their doctors,
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their lawyers, their nurses, their psychologists, there's even a software
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designer for Amazon. They're people who have contributed to the
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world in such incredible ways. And those thirty six lives
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have given so much to our world.
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And I always say this to my listeners. You know
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one person can make a difference. Don't throw your hands
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up in despair. A lot of us are frustrated with
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things that are going on that feel out of our control.
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But one person can make a difference. Now, Matt, after
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discovering this story of this hero, are you like on
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a mission to tell other stories that, no doubt we
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that have gone un covered in history with the Holocaust,
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a story that now you know there there are so
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many deniers, and with the deaths, you know there are
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very few that are still living that survived, and with
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them could go the truth.
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It is so essential that we raise up the figures,
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the ordinary figures who did extraordinary things in horrible circumstances. Shelley,
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I couldn't agree with you more. I think there's many
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of us who feel helpless or out of control our
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lives in our world at this point. But Ernold Spiegel
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was at Auschwitz, lost most of his family, and was
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put in charge of young boys by perhaps one of
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the most evil men in history, Joseph Mangela, And he
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took that set of circumstances impossible by any stretch of
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the imagination, and chose to do the right thing again
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and again and again. And it gives me hope, and
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it gives me inspiration, and I hope that people who
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see the Last Twins take that inspiration and take Ernold
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Schpied's Spiegel's example and bring it into their own lives,
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because we that sometimes that's all we can do is
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make the decisions to do the right thing and trust
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that it is going to pay itself forward.
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Yes, absolutely, thank you so much, and please say hi
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to Perry Pelts for me. I'm sorry she couldn't join us.
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I will last twins. This is absolutely a musty story.
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You've been listening to Sunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
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of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
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three
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Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
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Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
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This morning, we're gonna take a look at a father
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I never heard of, No doubt you have never heard of.
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But this man was an absolute hero. I always reference
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this as a hidden figure of history. There are so
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many unsung heroes, particularly when we talk about the Holocaust
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in theaters. Now, it's a documentary called The Last Twins,
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and one of the directors is with me now, Matthew O'Neill.
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It's also co directed and co produced by Perry Peltz,
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who we all know from New York City TV through
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so many years. But joining me this morning is Matthew O'Neill. So,
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The Last Twins actually is the story of a Jewish
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man in Auschwitz who saved dozens of young twins who
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were the victims of experimentation by the evil doctor Joseph Mengela.
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They could have easily died. There were so many other
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twins that died. Just an incredible story. First of all, Matthew,
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how did you come across this story?
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Shelley? Thank you first for the father's day wishes and
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there's no more appropriate day to be talking about Ernod zv. Spiegel.
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And when we first heard this story, we learned about
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it from his daughter Judith Richter, and we weren't sure
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it could possibly be true. And the story was one
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it was so dramatic and so engrossing, and it felt like,
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how could this story have never been told before? And
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we took the elements of the story that Judith had
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shared with us and we brought it to historians at
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the Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial Center in Poland and started asking
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them about this story. And at first they said, we
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never heard this story. We've heard reference to this, but
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this is not a story that we're aware of. It likely,
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you know, there's lots of stories from the Holocausts that
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come out that aren't necessarily rooted in truth. Then they
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called back and they said, this is all checking out.
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Can we have some more information? And the deeper we went,
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and the deeper we went, the more we learned about
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what actually happened at Auschwitz with Ernod's Vishpigel Erno, a
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twin himself was put in charge of the twin boys,
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that the evil, monstrous Joseph Mangla, we're running experiments on.
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Even his own children. This hero's own children did not
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know his story until again an unbelievable story. Tell it,
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Matt sure So.
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In short, as you see told in the film The
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Last Twins by the few surviving twins from that time
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first person testimonies from that period of time, Ernold Spiegel
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was a father figure to about forty young boys between
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the ages of five and twelve who were chosen to
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be experimented on by Joseph Mangel And this Shelley was
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an awful contradiction inside Auschwitz because they were being chosen
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to be experimented on, but by being chosen for experiments,
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they were also saved from immediate murder in the gas chambers.
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And Ernold changed some names and birth dates of boys
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who looked like who were just brothers and named them twins,
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thereby saving their lives. And there's countless excess and risking his,
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risking his For him to do what he did over
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the course of his nearly year when he was interred
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at Auschwitz was incredibly risky. And I think at this
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time when we're all in different ways trying to figure
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out how to be forces for positivity and good in
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our lives. Here is a man, a simple man who
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never wanted to be a hero, who was put in
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an imp possible situation, and then, through a series as
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you see in the film, a series of choices, consistently
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chose to do the right thing and thereby saved dozens
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and dozens of lives.
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And there was at one point, now the twins. First
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of all, there were boy twins who he was in
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charge of. Then there were girl twins, and another person
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was in charge of them. But the boys knew that
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people were being killed, that they knew what was going on. Now,
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remember they're just a little babies themselves, and there's this
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one point where an order comes down where they are
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going to be killed, and they know this and this,
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and this hero risks his own life, tell this story,
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Matt that and saves their lives.
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So Mangelo was actually visiting his sick wife and was
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not at the camp, and the replacement came in and
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lined up these children for execution, and Ernold saw what
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was happening and knew that if he could somehow reach
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Mangola again, these contradictions, because what Mangola was doing was
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inhuman and horrific and awful, but it meant preserving these
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kids' lives. Erno runs through the camp. Imagine a Jewish
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man running through Auschwitz in nineteen forty four, runs to
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the guard tower, risking his life to get word to
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Mangola and stops the execution of these boys moments before
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they were being sent to the.
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Gas chamber, and completely risked his life. I mean, who
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demands to speak to doctor Mengela, let alone a Jewish
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man demanding to speak to doctor Mengelo, who was furious
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because he wanted to continue his experiments. Now, mind you,
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if one of the twins died in experiments and this
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happened all the time, the other twin would them be
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killed and then autopsyed to be studied. I mean, these
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it's just mind boggling what went on in Auschwitz. I
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am speaking with the director, co director, co producer of
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The Last Twins, which you can now see in theaters.
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It is the true story of a hero, a Jewish
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man who was put in charge of the young twins
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who were the victims of experimentation by doctor Joseph Mangela
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at Auschwitz. I referenced earlier Matt that this hero's own family.
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He did not tell his story to his family. It's
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hard for me to wrap my head around why there
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was such shame among those who survived the Holocaust that
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they did not talk about this to their family, so
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many of them until many of them were near death
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themselves and just wanted the story to be told. But
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explain this feeling of shame rather than heroism of surviving Alschwitz,
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there was shame.
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I think there's an unbelievable level of trauma for people
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who went through that experience, and the exact reason why
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he never spoke is hard to discern. I don't even
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think after decades of trying to understand why her father
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never spoke and shared these stories, Judith really knows why,
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you know. She says that there was a there was
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a silence when it came to Auschwitz from him. They
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knew that he was in the camp, but he never
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told any of the stories, none of the stories that
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we're telling here, and not the story Shelley of the
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post Auschwitz liberation where instead of heading off on his
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own as a relatively healthy twenty nine year old man,
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he escorted thirty six boys between the age of five
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and twelve through a war zone right as the Soviet
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Army came in the coldest winter of the twentieth century
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back to Hungary. Then never spoke about it again in
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until one of the twins reached out in the nineteen
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eighties and the story began to reveal itself.
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But wasn't it a family member who actually saw the
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story in a supermarket and grabs what was it? Life
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magazine and happens to see this story about his relative,
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like what it was?
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His father in law? And there was a photo of
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Erno in this Life magazine piece about Mangla And there
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was a side reference that talked about two twins that
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credited this man, Ernod Schpiegel, with saving their lives. And
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it was the smallest of pictures, the smallest of sidebars.
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And Kobe Richter, Judith's husband, saw that in the supermarket
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while they were both studying in Boston and came running
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in and said, Judith, it's your father. It's your father
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in this story. And that's where they began to pull
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out these different details. And Peter Smoji, the boy who
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was pictured in that photo, reached out trying to find
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every Na Spiegel in Tel Aviv at that time to
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make that connection and reconnect, and back to that Father's
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day theme with the man who served as a father
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figure in the most horrific of circumstances at Auschwitz.
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Because they knew, these boys knew that their own families
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were gone, they were dead. This was this was he
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became their father.
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He did. And it's something that we've talked about a lot,
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you know, Perry and I in the edit room and
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with Judith to Peter Simoji, the boy that we're talking about,
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says that one of the kind things that Erno did
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was be very clear from the beginning when he first
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asked where my parents and Ernau explained that they had
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been murdered, And how a child understands that and how
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it shapes them, I don't know, you.
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Know, I've also I've often found it very strange, Matthew
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that so many who survived the Holocaust, and specifically survived
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the death camps, went on to live incredibly long lives.
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What are your thoughts on that?
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Something about resilience, right, something about in their in their
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core that will to live. You know that that interconnection.
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There are certain things that we can't help in our health,
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but that will to live somehow becomes part of our
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overall longevity or overall health. And you see in the
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in the film these boys, and I think of them
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as boys, even though when they were interviewed they were
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all in their eighties and nineties. They still feel when
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they go back to this place like a like a
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cadre of boys who went through this experience together. So
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we all prefer to them as the boys. These these
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boys lived long lives, and I think when we talk
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about the value of a child's life, no matter the
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race or ethnicity or location of that child, these men
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and their children and their children's children are a testimony
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to why it is so important that we work to
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save children's lives day in and day out. Because the
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generations that have come because of Erno's good work. Their doctors,
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their lawyers, their nurses, their psychologists, there's even a software
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designer for Amazon. They're people who have contributed to the
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world in such incredible ways. And those thirty six lives
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have given so much to our world.
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And I always say this to my listeners. You know
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one person can make a difference. Don't throw your hands
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up in despair. A lot of us are frustrated with
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things that are going on that feel out of our control.
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But one person can make a difference. Now, Matt, after
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discovering this story of this hero, are you like on
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a mission to tell other stories that, no doubt we
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that have gone un covered in history with the Holocaust,
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a story that now you know there there are so
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many deniers, and with the deaths, you know there are
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very few that are still living that survived, and with
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them could go the truth.
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It is so essential that we raise up the figures,
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the ordinary figures who did extraordinary things in horrible circumstances. Shelley,
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I couldn't agree with you more. I think there's many
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of us who feel helpless or out of control our
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lives in our world at this point. But Ernold Spiegel
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was at Auschwitz, lost most of his family, and was
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put in charge of young boys by perhaps one of
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the most evil men in history, Joseph Mangela, And he
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took that set of circumstances impossible by any stretch of
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the imagination, and chose to do the right thing again
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and again and again. And it gives me hope, and
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it gives me inspiration, and I hope that people who
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see the Last Twins take that inspiration and take Ernold
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Schpied's Spiegel's example and bring it into their own lives,
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because we that sometimes that's all we can do is
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make the decisions to do the right thing and trust
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that it is going to pay itself forward.
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Yes, absolutely, thank you so much, and please say hi
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to Perry Pelts for me. I'm sorry she couldn't join us.
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I will last twins. This is absolutely a musty story.
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You've been listening to Sunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
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of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
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three
