Jonny Gould's Jewish State

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,