Home  >  The History Hour  >  World War Two on film and Africa's landmark lifestyle magazine
The History Hour
World War Two on film and Africa's landmark lifestyle magazine
The History Hour
Jan 18, 2025

Josephine McDermott sits in for Max Pearson presenting a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.

We hear from the author who stumbled across the story of Oskar Schindler while shopping for a briefcase in Beverly Hills.

Our guest is Dr Anne-Marie Scholz, from the University of Bremen in Germany, who reflects on the impact of dramatizations of World War Two.

We also hear about the start of Drum magazine, credited with giving black African writers a voice in the time of Apartheid.

The devastation of the earthquake in the port city of Kobe, Japan, is recalled by a child survivor.

Plus, the New Deal created by President Franklin D Roosevelt to drag the United States from the Depression of the 1930s.

Finally, the family intervention of American former First Lady Betty Ford, which led to the world-famous rehabilitation clinic being started.

Contributors:

Thomas Keneally – author of Schindler’s Ark.

Dr Anne-Marie Scholz - author of From Fidelity to History: Film Adaptations as Cultural Events in the 20th Century.

Prospero Bailey - son of Jim Bailey on the origins of Drum magazine.

Kiho Park – survivor of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

Adam Cohen – expert on Roosevelt's New Deal.

Susan Ford Bales – daughter of Betty Ford.

(Photo: Nazi SS troops in Germany. Credit: Getty Images)

More Episodes

Aug 15, 2026
The Mau Mau uprising and man-eating lions

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes focussing on Kenya.

We hear about Muthoni Kirima, one of the last Mau Mau fighters to come out of hiding and lay down her arms.

Caroline Elkins, Professor of History at Harvard University, discusses the brutality of the conflict between Kenya’s Land and Freedom Army, the British and Kenyan loyalists.

Next, when Princess Elizabeth became queen while staying at the Treetops Hotel, a lodge in the Aberdare National Park.

In 1997, scientists travelled to Kenya, in search of a cave believed to have been the den of the man-eating lions that terrorised railway workers in 1898.

Plus, we hear how Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga signed an unprecedented power-sharing deal to end a wave of violence that left more than 1,200 people dead.

And the heartwarming story of the friendship between a baby hippo and a 130-year-old giant tortoise.

Finally for our Sporting Witness story, we head to the first Ultimate Frisbee World Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1983.

Contributors: Caroline Elkins - Professor of History at Harvard University, and author of Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. Muthoni Kirima - Field Marshall in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army. Frank Gillard - BBC correspondent. Thomas Gnoske - Scientist. Alan Patterson - British Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson's grandson. Maina Kiai - Chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in 2008. Maini Schildt - Swedish Ultimate Frisbee player.

(Photo: Mau Mau suspects are rounded up by police outside the camp in Manyani, Kenya, 1955. Credit: Getty Images/Authenticated News)


01hr 00min



World War Two on film and Africa's landmark lifestyle magazine

--:--
--:--