Laya's Way Home Part 1
In 1945, Laya Semler became the last Jew sent to a concentration camp from Wennigsen, Germany. Her non-Jewish husband Adolf chose slave labour rather than abandon her. Theirs is a love story for the ages.
Jun 20, 2023•28 min
ABC Rewind
The History Listen is now ABC Rewind, the home of gripping narrative history series. Dive into true stories told by the people who lived through them.
Last refreshed: ⓘ
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Episodes
Laya's Way Home Part 1
In 1945, Laya Semler became the last Jew sent to a concentration camp from Wennigsen, Germany. Her non-Jewish husband Adolf chose slave labour rather than abandon her. Theirs is a love story for the ages.
Jun 20, 2023•28 min
Spies, lies and hairdryers
In the 1950s a romantic proposition by a Russian diplomat transformed Kay Marshall from an admin worker into one of Australia’s most important double agents. It was the beginning of a four-year intelligence operation which revealed that there was more going on at the Soviet Embassy than met the eye..
Jun 13, 2023•29 min
Through Samurai Eyes, ep 2
When amateur historian Nick Russell stumbled across a set of very old Japanese manuscripts, he unearthed a dramatic tale of convict mutineers, samurai warriors and a hijacked ship, which sheds new light on one of the greatest escape stories in Australian history.
Jun 06, 2023•29 min
Through Samurai eyes: one of Australia's greatest convict escape stories
A dramatic tale featuring pirates, Samurai warriors, a historical detective and a ship of escaped convicts from Australia who washed up in Japan in 1830
May 30, 2023•29 min
Those Bloody Vegos - a short history of vegetarianism
A plant-eating sleuth uncovers the hidden history of vegetarianism in Australia - featuring spiritualists, nudists, and politicians, plus plenty of nutmeat and a vegan dish called Hampstead Cutlets
May 23, 2023•30 min
The Unknown Sailor
A lost ship, A lost sailor, a lost identity. In November 1941 as war drew closer to Australia. the HMAS Sydney and its crew of 645 sailors disappeared off the Western Australian coast after being ambushed by a German raider. Months later the body of a sailor washed up on tiny Christmas Island and was laid to rest by locals. Half a century on this unknown sailor would help unravel the mystery of how the pride of Australia’s navy just vanished.
May 16, 2023•31 min
The Lost Boys of Daylesford
On a clear cold Sunday morning in June 1867, three little boys wandered away from their home near the town of Daylesford, on Dja Dja Wurrung country in central Victoria. Over the next six weeks the boys’ story gripped the colony.
May 09, 2023•29 min
Green Mountains Plane Crash
19th February 1937, a Stinson passenger plane leaves Brisbane for a routine flight to Sydney, but never it arrives. Instead, its disappearance sparks one of the most extensive air searches in Australia.
May 02, 2023•29 min
Edie's War
When Penny Bristol Jones inherited a battered trunk full of family documents and memorabilia, little did she know the rich wartime history she would uncover. In amongst the bounty was a collection of diaries and letters written by Penny’s great grandmother Edie Digby, during the First World War, while her husband and two sons were away at the front.
Apr 25, 2023•29 min
The Great Australian Camel Race (part 2)
It’s 6 weeks into this epic 3300-kilometre adventure, and competitors face the longest leg of the race, across the Simpson Desert and into Queensland. The stakes are high, as they battle illness, flood, fatigue and flies, in the push towards the finish line on the Gold Coast, and call themselves the winner?
Apr 18, 2023•29 min
The Great Australian Camel Race (part 1)
It’s April 1988, somewhere near Uluru, and the starter gun kicks off one of the strangest, most audacious events to mark Australia's bicentennial year, the Great Australian Camel Race. People came from all around the world to take part in a feat which spanned over 3000km, as camels and humans endured scorching heat, flooding rains and serious sickness that almost sent the race belly-up.
Apr 11, 2023•26 min
The Kitchen Table - Spice
It's time to rethink the spices in your pantry. The long trade in clove and nutmeg lead to colonisation, but long before the Europeans arrived, it helped define the language, culture, religion and geography of Indonesia.
Apr 04, 2023•33 min
The Kitchen Table - Wine
What's the story behind your favourite wine? This fermented drink has long been an important part of Australia's social and cultural history, used for ceremonial, medicinal and celebratory purposes.
Mar 28, 2023•30 min
The Kitchen Table - Salt
Behind your humble shaker of table salt lies a curious and industrious history
Mar 21, 2023•30 min
The kitchen table - Tea
By the turn of the twentieth century Australians were the world’s most obsessive tea drinkers. Four cups with a meal wasn’t uncommon. Where did this insatiable thirst start? and did it ever really stop? A story about Australia's tea drinking history, and the beverage that keeps us brewing
Mar 14, 2023•30 min
Crossing Time: Australia's transgender history—part 2
The 1970s was a decade which saw social change, that helped foster new ideas and understandings about sex, gender and identity. And much of this change was brought about by trans activists.
Mar 07, 2023•29 min
Crossing Time: Australia's transgender history—part 1
In the last few decades, there has been a huge social transformation in the way people express and talk about gender. But right across time, and here in Australia, there’ve always been people who existed outside the binary definition of male and female.Compelling history from Australia and around the world.
Feb 28, 2023•30 min
The Making of Mardi Gras: Supernova
In 2002, after a decade of giddy expansion, the bubble burst for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. With debts mounting and creditors circling, Mardi Gras went into voluntary administration. In the new millennium, had Mardi Gras lost its relevance?
Feb 21, 2023•30 min
The Making of Mardi Gras (1979 -1981)
To mark 2023 World Pride, the origin story of Sydney Mardi Gras. How did a one-off street protest on a chilly winter's night more than 40 years ago transform into the massive annual summer celebration we now know?
Feb 14, 2023•30 min
Mrs C Private Detective
A journey back to the mean streets of Brisbane in the 1920s with clever and feisty private detective – Mrs Kate Condon.
Feb 07, 2023•30 min
Partition's children
When India was divided to create Pakistan more than a million people lost their lives. People who were there remember the chaos, violence and moments of kindness of Partition.
Jan 31, 2023•30 min
Making Manganinnie
The story behind the 1980 Australian film Manganinne, set during the infamous Black Line violence of colonial Tasmania, and the extraordinary Yolngu actor, Mawuyul Yanthalawuy. who plays the film's central character.
Jan 24, 2023•30 min
A Day at the Beach - Wanda 1982
Were you at the Wanda gig in 1982? It's forty years since Triple J hosted a free outdoor concert on Sydney's Wanda Beach, when a massive crowd turned up to see the bands whose music defined an era, and who changed the sound of Australian rock forever
Jan 17, 2023•30 min
Play your way to happiness
It was the Great Depression in Australia. People dreamt of a paradise, an escape from Nowheresville. And they found it, gathering on the beaches of coastal cities and crowding halls in country towns - to play Hawaiian steel guitar. Historian Robyn Annear discovers what drove thousands of Australians to learn this unlikely instrument?
Jan 10, 2023•30 min
Miner Poets - songs and verse from the west coast of Tasmania
We travel to the west coast of Tasmania, to meet the mining communities who carry on a rich cultural tradition of storytelling in poetry and song.
Jan 03, 2023•30 min
Fairlight CMI - the sound you've never heard of
The Australian instrument that shaped the sound of the 1980s and forever changed how popular music was made. This documentary won the 2023 Prix Italia in the Radio & Podcast Music category.
Dec 27, 2022•30 min
Brother artist Hosea Easton
In 1899 two thousand people attended the funeral of an African-American banjo player in Sydney. Who was he? How did he come to be in Australia and why was he so loved? Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe tells the story of Hosea Easton, along with the history of minstrel music and the banjo, in Australia and the United States.
Dec 20, 2022•30 min
An Object in Time - The Flag
The story of one of history’s most mysterious flags - the Jolly Roger. It’s the pirate flag that defined one of the world’s greatest criminal enterprises and it helps us to understand how the high seas transformed from lawlessness to order
Dec 13, 2022•30 min
An Object in Time | The Jewel
The story of the diamond so infused with underhand deeds and deadly acts that it was thought to curse any male ruler who wore it..
Dec 06, 2022•30 min
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android