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. They both survived. In 2022, the village of Wennigsen invited their Australian family back to commemorate Laya and Adolf’s bravery. Told by their great-grandchildren, Laya and Adolf’s story is testament to the power love has to bridge even the greatest differences. But it’s also the story of a town only just coming to terms with t...
Dec 14, 2024•29 min
Fifty years ago, in the early hours of Christmas Day 1974, Cyclone Tracy killed 66 people and decimated the city of Garramilla/Darwin. Afterwards more than 30,000 residents were evacuated, many never returning to Darwin. Writing down memories of the event helped some survivors of the cyclone process the experience. Hear a handful of these stories, set in crumbling houses, airborne cars, a busy restaurant and an overcrowded hospital, all set to the terrifying real-life soundtrack of Cyclone Tracy...
Dec 07, 2024•28 min
It’s the early 1900s and a gang of men moves through the gritty streets of inner-city North Melbourne: they dress sharp and inspire fear wherever they go. This gang, the Crutchy Push ruled the streets of North Melbourne over a ten year period, from late 1890s. And the reason for their curious name? All the members of this gang were amputees: mostly one-legged, and they used a crutch - and not just for walking! To mark the International Day for People With Disability, Melbourne-based writer and d...
Nov 30, 2024•24 min
It’s March 25th, 1999, and Australia’s most remarkable prison escape has just taken place, after a helicopter hovers above the recreation grounds at the Silverwater maximum security prison, in Sydney. In the blink of an eye, a prisoner runs towards the chopper, climbs onboard, and is on his way to freedom. This is the story of that airborne escapee, John Killick, a man who spent much of his life leading the authorities on a merry dance. Somehow he survived his dangerous escapades and many prison...
Nov 26, 2024•29 min
In a shocking and brutal end to a colourful life, Australian wallpaper designer Florence Broadhurst was murdered in her Paddington studio on the 15th of October, 1977. So who was suspected of this crime and why is the case still unsolved to this day? Please listen with care - this episode contains graphic content. Guests: Tony Russell – Former NSW Police officer Helen O’Neill – Journalist and author, Florence Broadhurst: her secret and extraordinary lives Mark Whittaker – Journalist and author, ...
Nov 16, 2024
She’s one of Australia’s most prolific and popular designers, and yet not many people know her name, let alone her audacious life story. Florence Broadhurst was from regional Queensland but people who met her later in life, thought she was English aristocrat. She reinvented herself many times throughout her life. Today she’s known for her wallpaper designs that cemented her in Australian design history. But a shadow lingers over her legacy; her unsolved murder in 1977. Guests: Helen O’Neill – Jo...
Nov 09, 2024
When superannuation pioneer Mavis Robertson was in her seventies, she was showered with awards and honours. But something was missing from the life story shared with the public at this time: the more than 30 years she spent as a leading member of the Communist Party of Australia. Historian Alice Garner and Mavis's son Peter Robertson delve into this part of his mother's life, including her extensive ASIO security file.
Nov 02, 2024•30 min
An entire school is kidnapped at gunpoint. 9 students and their teacher are taken hostage by a prison escapee who demands a ransom of 7 million dollars, the release of 17 prisoners, 100 kilos of cocaine, automatic weapons, and an escape vehicle.
Oct 26, 2024•30 min
After World War Two, around 650 Japanese war brides crossed once enemy lines to make a home in Australia, at a time when the White Australia Policy still held sway. But 50 years on, how do the grandchildren of the Japanese war brides understand their family story?
Oct 19, 2024•29 min
The Martha Plan was a secret scheme created in the early 1960's to bring unmarried Spanish women to Australia, in the hope that they'd stay and populate the country. Did it work?
Oct 12, 2024•29 min
Hidden for nearly a century, two chests of mail found under a Sydney home was declared to be one of the most important hauls in Australia’s postal history. Why the secrecy? And why has a Sydney family been so shocked by their revelations?
Oct 05, 2024•29 min
When journalist Annika Blau learnt of the discovery of two tea chests of very valuable mail under the floorboards of an old Sydney home, she uncovered secrets, silences and shame from a chapter of Australia's history some would prefer to forget.
Sep 28, 2024•29 min
Where did Jack Karlson learn the lines he delivers in his famous viral video? This moving story of the prison playwright and the performer unravels why Jack uttered those now infamous words “This is democracy manifest.”
Sep 21, 2024•31 min
Who is the man behind Australia’s most iconic internet meme, who famously said “This is democracy manifest”?
Sep 14, 2024•29 min
59-year-old Ingrid was in her office one day when her phone rang. It was the German Red Cross. They asked if she was Ingrid von Oelhafen? Also known as Erika Matko? It was the call she’d waited for her whole life and it opened the door to a terrible secret from one of Nazi Germany’s sickest experiments. Who was she? And where was she from?
Sep 07, 2024•33 min
Ingrid von Oelhafen’s childhood in post-WW2 Germany was full of strange events - her mother inexplicably left her in a children’s home for five years, her doctor called her by another name. It took her decades to discover the horrific truth - a secret that led straight back to the highest powers of the Nazi regime.
Aug 31, 2024•33 min
The Kangaroo dog is unique to Australia. It's a mystery dog with a big story. Born in the early Sydney colony, this deerhound-greyhound mongrel dog was bred to hunt and kill kangaroos.
Aug 24, 2024•37 min
Swimmer Siobahn Paton won multiple medals at the Sydney 2000 games but her dreams were shattered when athletes in a different sport cheated spectacularly. Louise Sauvage delves into the controversy of classification along with the heightened visibility and respect the Games have brought to all people with disabilities.
Aug 17, 2024•30 min
Join wheelchair racing legend Louise Sauvage for the fascinating evolution of The Paralympics, from life-saving rehabilitation for World War 2 soldiers to today’s elite sporting event.
Aug 10, 2024•29 min
The mysterious tale of rich socialite Margaret Clement, who lived alone in the Gippsland bush in a decaying mansion encircled by waist-deep water. She was known to locals as 'the lady of the swamp' until one day in 1952 Margaret simply vanished.
Aug 03, 2024•29 min
The story of an epic 3300-kilometre adventure from the Australian desert to the coast. Half way through the race, Illness, flood, fatigue and flies are all taking their toll, as camels and riders push through to the finish line.
Jul 27, 2024•29 min
It’s April 1988, somewhere near Uluru, and the starter gun fires 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.
Jul 20, 2024•26 min
Don Dunstan had a dream - a futuristic city to rise out of The Mallee. What went wrong? After years of planning and designing why was it never built?
Jul 13, 2024•29 min
It's the 1980s, and the first devastating decade of the AIDS pandemic. A young student nurse tests positive for the virus. and this information ends up on the front page of his local newspaper. A tale of fear and prejudice. but also of great courage, and love.
Jul 06, 2024•29 min
Mercia Masson, one of Australia’s longest serving undercover ASIO agents, spied on her communist friends, while her only daughter remained in the dark.
Jun 29, 2024•29 min
A clever young street urchin disguises herself as aristocracy. She inconveniently finds herself in a convict cell in Tasmania - but only temporarily. Then it's onto the streets of 1850’s Melbourne to continue her deception.
Jun 22, 2024•29 min
The public watch the sky above Sydney as a Boeing 707 circles for hours. Fuel running dangerously low. Qantas flight 755 from Sydney to Hong Kong, is threatened by a terrifying phone call. Richard Roxburgh takes a deep dive into the events of that fateful day. On May 26th, Qantas flight 755 takes off on a routine flight from Sydney to Hong Kong. A man called Mr Brown telephones. He wants half a million dollars – or else 'the plane will blow up'. The public watches the sky above Sydney as a 707 c...
Jun 15, 2024•29 min
Is he a baronet or a butcher from Wagga Wagga? Can he claim the estate of an English aristocrat who has been lost at sea?
Jun 08, 2024•29 min
One of Australia’s craftiest counterfeiters forges two million dollars in his suburban basement in the 1950s. Richard Roxburgh, renowned for playing shady characters on screen, tells the story of Robert Baudin and his brazen ability to make fake money.
Jun 01, 2024•29 min
Australian history’s littered with con artists. Renowned Australian actor Richard Roxburgh tells the stories of these brazen and downright deviant identities who used their charm and smarts to spy, extort and steal. How did they get away with it? The first episode drops on the 1st of June.
May 30, 2024
