In 1943, while Mike’s mother’s family were being killed, a Nazi journalist obtained Mike’s mother’s home, the Leipzig house from which the SS had expelled them a few years earlier.

In 1951, instead of returning the home to Mike’s mother, East Germany stole it again, and handed it back to the Nazi journalist.

Now it is 40 years later, 1991, and Mike arrives in newly reunited Germany to try finally to recover his mother’s house. But he encounters official obstruction and resistance.

And then he discovers the Nazi journalist is still alive, and still holding his wartime plunder.
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

Lilli Gold

Mike Joseph

Holger Jackisch

Sami Abu Salem

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

Wera Hobhouse as Marie Nummer

Christel Stoecker-Danby as Leipzig Housing Manager

Kerstin Barthelmes as Frau Jordan, Leipzig Property Claims Officer

James Stewart as Ralph Dippmann

Klaus Riekemann as Aron Adlerstein

Melissa Pawelski     as Suzannah Kucharski

Clemens Hofer as Peter Kirsten

Christel Stoecker-Danby voicing confiscation and conveyance to Dippmann

James Stewart voicing conveyance to Dippmann