london-based in the Middle East that
means reporting from Iraq Gaza Jerusalem
and before that Afghanistan and Moscow
conflict zones but now the project I’m
doing at the moment is more daring
because I’m interviewing older women I
used to say I was interviewing old women
until one of them said she didn’t like
that she was 95 at the time
she’s now 99 and still incredibly vital
but we don’t hear much from women like
her in our society which worships youth
and beauty
all the women disappear from our screens
all of them when I was a reporter in
Moscow I remember seeing Russian women
old Russian women standing in the snow
to sell trinkets to support their
families a Russian man turned to me and
said unas silly babushka we have strong
grandmothers he was right but Russia is
one of the few places where grandmothers
are respected even feared the women I’ve
been interviewing for the past three
years deserve respect their Jewish
Holocaust survivors one slide behind
I’ve gone back to these women who’s
lived through World War 2 because their
numbers are dwindling the youngest are
now in their 80s and because although
they suffered so much they built
something how did they do that
the theme of this TEDx conference is
walls and shadows and the walls in the
lives of these Holocaust survivors are
obvious first they were herded into
ghettos literal walls and many then lost
their entire families in the Nazi
genocide some felt shut off by surviving
mass murder and experience that no one
else could really comprehend after all
that they were held in refugee camps
more walls for years before they could
start their lives over the shadows are
the parts of their experiences that they
carried with them
and they passed them on of course to
their children and grandchildren anxiety
fear panic attacks a feeling of always
being an outsider and always needing an
escape plan there’s no relaxing as one
of the women said to me with more people
there are now currently more people on
the move then at any time since the end
of World War two and how countries how
we treat the traumatized refugees that
we take in is a global social issue what
can we learn from these refugees from an
earlier era here are some of them it’s
worth asking this because I’ve
interviewed now more than 30 women from
Europe Russia and even North Africa and
they live in Australia and in Israel and
I sit in their kitchens and they tell me
about their life experience and also
their recipes this has a serious point
because many of them have been starving
had been starving and that’s an
experience that affects you for life
cooking again having access to a kitchen
in which to cook is a sign that you are
rebuilding cooking the dishes that you
know from home is a comfort and a
pleasure and also a way of retaining
identity for those who didn’t even have
a single photo of their faith the smell
and the taste of this food was memory
they passed that down to their children
– Nancy Kaplan is an American daughter
of Holocaust survivors she cooked the
dish and of course posted a photo on
Facebook and she wrote my mom’s brisket
she has she is not with us since I was
in my 20s but she joins us when we cook
and eat her foods I have a personal
motive for doing this because I’m also
searching for the taste of memory for me
that’s my grandmother’s honey cake
it was dark fragrant and spicy a little
bit like gingerbread
more moist and it’s the dish that says
family to me
my grandmother Leia was young glamorous
and a great cook when I grew up in
Sydney her kitchen was the heart of our
family it was where we gathered every
day after school and where she cooked
which she did without ever using a
recipe book really
and then suddenly she died when I was in
my 20s I’d watched her cooking but I
hadn’t written anything down she never
wrote anything down I didn’t know how I
was going to preserve her memory without
those tastes so my morning became
focused on trying to recreate her honey
cake I would I have to say obsessively
bake and discard one honey cake after
another
there was a light French recipe from the
great food writer Elizabeth David with
clover honey and almonds
there was a heavier Russian cake with
three types of flour and cottage cheese
they were all delicious but they weren’t
right they weren’t my grandmother’s
honey cake there is an attempt at any
rate so I’d start baking all over again
what do you learn when you cook with
your grandmother
obviously you learn a whole lot more
than the recipe you learn family history
and your place in the world you learn
that the kitchen is the heart of the
home you learn that special meals are
prepared for celebrations but you can
make an ordinary meal special too just
by caring about how you prepare it you
learn that cooking brings people
together you learn that it can do that
even after an argument that a meal taken
together can restore and resolve
differences you learn generosity warmth
and hospitality you learned love that’s
why I’ve called my project food is love
and I began with evergreen stone
she’s a Holocaust survivor from Slovakia
a fabulous cook and the mother of one of
my closest friends
I watched her caring for her
grandchildren my friend Elizabeth’s
children
she would cook them nutritious dinners
bake them elaborate birthday cakes tell
them bedtime stories every night
in short she wrapped them in love I
watched her cooking from a battered old
cookbook it was handwritten and it was
woke with a story an unforgettable one
in 1940 according to the 1940 census
there were 90,000 Jews living in
Slovakia there were 90,000 years living
in Slovakia and by war’s end there were
only 30,000 more than two-thirds had
been murdered including members of Eva’s
family soon after the war began Eva and
her mother and her sister Vera were
herded into the ghetto in Bratislava
which was then controlled by local
allies of the Nazis in 1944 the Nazis
invaded and they began transporting Jews
to the death camps in large numbers
Eva’s mother hid her daughters but she
was soon caught with Eva’s aren’t susan
in one location and then the girls were
found where they were hiding Eva was
then 15 her sister Vera was 13 they were
loaded onto a train that usually
transported animals and they were
transported taken for three days on a
journey without food and water they
arrived they didn’t know where it turned
out to be the death camp of Auschwitz on
the platform was an SS officer who
separated Eva and Vera there was no
opportunity for goodbye they didn’t even
realize it was goodbye actually Eva’s
last images of Vera’s head disappearing
into a line on the other side of the
platform there were old women and
children in that line and everyone there
was murdered in nearby gas chambers
within an hour Eva was now alone in this
most terrible place he was disinfected
her head was shaved looking much like
that and she was tattooed with a number
that was to replace her name she too
might have been killed
actually but it was getting close to the
end of the war
and the Nazis were losing he was more
valuable to them as a slave laborer six
months later she was ill emaciated but
alive after a long convalescence she
returned to Bratislava she had to accept
that her mother her aunt Susan and her
sister Vera had all been murdered she
went back to her old home and didn’t
really feel a sense of connection until
in the cellar
she found a box and in that box was her
grandmother’s cookbook that’s the book
that I saw Eva cooking from in her
kitchen that’s the book she’s been
cooking from ever since keeping alive
the tastes of that vanished world it’s a
link to her past but also because she
cooks for her grandchildren to her
future so what have I learned
interviewing Eva and the other women in
this project primarily that’s lovely Eva
primarily it’s a lesson about resilience
or what psychologists today call
post-traumatic growth the German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously
said what doesn’t break me makes me
stronger what these women teach is that
even if an experience does break you you
can put yourself together back together
stronger to almost every woman I’ve
interviewed gets to a dramatic point in
her story and then she says and that was
another miracle and they’re right of
course
they had to be luck they’re a tiny
remnant six million others did not
survive so I’ve learned that sometimes
you need a miracle good fortune a break
in the clouds to help you scale a wall
another thing I’ve noticed is that these
women don’t complain at the end of very
hard stories they say to me wasn’t so
bad other people had it worse those who
can’t say that because they really did
have it very badly
they say they survived because of the
support of someone else a mother sister
brother or friend and netter able and
Stephanie Hillier are twins
from Prague in Czechoslovakia now 891
they live in Melbourne Australia around
the corner from each other they survived
for more than a year in Auschwitz in the
section where inhuman medical
experiments were performed each says
that she survived because of the other
we were always optimistic says Anita
otherwise we wouldn’t be here hope
brings you further what are the
characteristics do these women have in
common
first an obvious point they’re all women
now I know the grandmothers usually are
but I’ve interviewed more than 30 men 30
women and only three men these women are
these grandmothers are widows now too
they cope with that loss women are the
great survivors next they’re energetic
full of beans and also practical their
feet are firmly on the ground
they are doers these women not dreamers
they live a full old age which includes
manicures and trips to the hairdresser I
was standing in the home of Rina Navarro
she lives in Jerusalem and she’s a
Holocaust survivor from Libya I asked if
I could upend her kitchen in order to
take some photos and she said to me
that’s her in the Jerusalem market she
said to me something I’ve never
forgotten you can do whatever you like
there’s no one to tell us not to these
women all cook for me even on my first
visit there’s no conversation without
coffee and cake lots of cake
they always insists on seconds sometimes
even thirds you try saying no to a
Jewish grandmother it’s impossible to be
thin on a project like this they cook
from scratch the way that nutritionists
today recommend we all do but they’re
adaptable as their grandchildren become
first vegetarian then vegan and then
gluten-free out goes meat sour cream and
white flour
and they are cooking with tofu cooking
the old recipes with tofu and baking gif
cakes
none of them waste anything if your
recipe calls for egg yolks you use the
egg whites in another dish almost every
woman in fact I think every single woman
that I’ve seen when I’m there while
she’s cooking
she gives leftovers to the local cats
the birds get the crumbs people who’ve
been hungry don’t throw away food and
people who’ve been hungry for them their
greatest joy is sitting with their
families at tables groaning with food
that they’ve prepared the families that
they build and cook for are their
triumph over hardship and evil American
poet John goos love ski is the son of
two Polish Christians who were held in
the Nazi concentration camps he writes
about his father he hates no one not God
not the dead who come to him not the
Germans who caught him not even himself
for being alive he’s a man held together
with stitches he laced himself still
almost all Holocaust survivors were
traumatized today we’d say they had
undiagnosed PTSD as they experienced
nightmares depression and unexplained
rages some talked about their
experiences equal numbers didn’t I’ve
interviewed women who never told their
husbands their stories and didn’t know
what happened to their husbands during
the war but the passage of time did
change that as one woman said to me
after 40 years we started talking and
when they started talking it was often
to their grandchildren many of the
volunteers of the grandchildren who
volunteered to take part in the food his
love project are actually boys now many
of them are men towering over tiny
grandmother’s Eva grin stone cooks with
her grandson Nicholas and her
granddaughter Emily both of them say
they value the sense of connection that
it gives them
I’m cooking with Eva it’s not just
cooking I’m learning my family story
says Emily and she says I have to quote
her exactly or I’ll be in big trouble
she says that she knows that all the
recipes that she’s cooked with Eva that
she’s learning she’s going to keep on
cooking them when it’s just her brothers
and her as a way of holding her family
together when we’re having our
celebrations I know that it’s Eva’s
recipes that’ll be on the table since
Emily rice one of the food is love
grandmother’s told me that I was the
keeper of their memories it’s a role I
like I’m putting together a book called
of course food is love with the women’s
photos their stories and of course their
recipes including the new modern updated
versions everything will be in one place
and no one will have to look and search
for her grandmother’s honey cake on your
chairs you should find a copy of one of
a sample it’s a recipe from evergreen
stone for her delicious sour cherry
chocolate and walnut cake it comes from
her grandmother’s cookbook and it’s on
the table for every birthday for every
grandchild in Australia one last thought
for everyone here and it’s this for all
of you who are lucky enough to still
have a grandmother give them a call drop
by let them cook for you and tell you
your family stories
don’t let these women’s stories fade
into the shadows they’re your stories
our stories – thank you [Music]
means reporting from Iraq Gaza Jerusalem
and before that Afghanistan and Moscow
conflict zones but now the project I’m
doing at the moment is more daring
because I’m interviewing older women I
used to say I was interviewing old women
until one of them said she didn’t like
that she was 95 at the time
she’s now 99 and still incredibly vital
but we don’t hear much from women like
her in our society which worships youth
and beauty
all the women disappear from our screens
all of them when I was a reporter in
Moscow I remember seeing Russian women
old Russian women standing in the snow
to sell trinkets to support their
families a Russian man turned to me and
said unas silly babushka we have strong
grandmothers he was right but Russia is
one of the few places where grandmothers
are respected even feared the women I’ve
been interviewing for the past three
years deserve respect their Jewish
Holocaust survivors one slide behind
I’ve gone back to these women who’s
lived through World War 2 because their
numbers are dwindling the youngest are
now in their 80s and because although
they suffered so much they built
something how did they do that
the theme of this TEDx conference is
walls and shadows and the walls in the
lives of these Holocaust survivors are
obvious first they were herded into
ghettos literal walls and many then lost
their entire families in the Nazi
genocide some felt shut off by surviving
mass murder and experience that no one
else could really comprehend after all
that they were held in refugee camps
more walls for years before they could
start their lives over the shadows are
the parts of their experiences that they
carried with them
and they passed them on of course to
their children and grandchildren anxiety
fear panic attacks a feeling of always
being an outsider and always needing an
escape plan there’s no relaxing as one
of the women said to me with more people
there are now currently more people on
the move then at any time since the end
of World War two and how countries how
we treat the traumatized refugees that
we take in is a global social issue what
can we learn from these refugees from an
earlier era here are some of them it’s
worth asking this because I’ve
interviewed now more than 30 women from
Europe Russia and even North Africa and
they live in Australia and in Israel and
I sit in their kitchens and they tell me
about their life experience and also
their recipes this has a serious point
because many of them have been starving
had been starving and that’s an
experience that affects you for life
cooking again having access to a kitchen
in which to cook is a sign that you are
rebuilding cooking the dishes that you
know from home is a comfort and a
pleasure and also a way of retaining
identity for those who didn’t even have
a single photo of their faith the smell
and the taste of this food was memory
they passed that down to their children
– Nancy Kaplan is an American daughter
of Holocaust survivors she cooked the
dish and of course posted a photo on
Facebook and she wrote my mom’s brisket
she has she is not with us since I was
in my 20s but she joins us when we cook
and eat her foods I have a personal
motive for doing this because I’m also
searching for the taste of memory for me
that’s my grandmother’s honey cake
it was dark fragrant and spicy a little
bit like gingerbread
more moist and it’s the dish that says
family to me
my grandmother Leia was young glamorous
and a great cook when I grew up in
Sydney her kitchen was the heart of our
family it was where we gathered every
day after school and where she cooked
which she did without ever using a
recipe book really
and then suddenly she died when I was in
my 20s I’d watched her cooking but I
hadn’t written anything down she never
wrote anything down I didn’t know how I
was going to preserve her memory without
those tastes so my morning became
focused on trying to recreate her honey
cake I would I have to say obsessively
bake and discard one honey cake after
another
there was a light French recipe from the
great food writer Elizabeth David with
clover honey and almonds
there was a heavier Russian cake with
three types of flour and cottage cheese
they were all delicious but they weren’t
right they weren’t my grandmother’s
honey cake there is an attempt at any
rate so I’d start baking all over again
what do you learn when you cook with
your grandmother
obviously you learn a whole lot more
than the recipe you learn family history
and your place in the world you learn
that the kitchen is the heart of the
home you learn that special meals are
prepared for celebrations but you can
make an ordinary meal special too just
by caring about how you prepare it you
learn that cooking brings people
together you learn that it can do that
even after an argument that a meal taken
together can restore and resolve
differences you learn generosity warmth
and hospitality you learned love that’s
why I’ve called my project food is love
and I began with evergreen stone
she’s a Holocaust survivor from Slovakia
a fabulous cook and the mother of one of
my closest friends
I watched her caring for her
grandchildren my friend Elizabeth’s
children
she would cook them nutritious dinners
bake them elaborate birthday cakes tell
them bedtime stories every night
in short she wrapped them in love I
watched her cooking from a battered old
cookbook it was handwritten and it was
woke with a story an unforgettable one
in 1940 according to the 1940 census
there were 90,000 Jews living in
Slovakia there were 90,000 years living
in Slovakia and by war’s end there were
only 30,000 more than two-thirds had
been murdered including members of Eva’s
family soon after the war began Eva and
her mother and her sister Vera were
herded into the ghetto in Bratislava
which was then controlled by local
allies of the Nazis in 1944 the Nazis
invaded and they began transporting Jews
to the death camps in large numbers
Eva’s mother hid her daughters but she
was soon caught with Eva’s aren’t susan
in one location and then the girls were
found where they were hiding Eva was
then 15 her sister Vera was 13 they were
loaded onto a train that usually
transported animals and they were
transported taken for three days on a
journey without food and water they
arrived they didn’t know where it turned
out to be the death camp of Auschwitz on
the platform was an SS officer who
separated Eva and Vera there was no
opportunity for goodbye they didn’t even
realize it was goodbye actually Eva’s
last images of Vera’s head disappearing
into a line on the other side of the
platform there were old women and
children in that line and everyone there
was murdered in nearby gas chambers
within an hour Eva was now alone in this
most terrible place he was disinfected
her head was shaved looking much like
that and she was tattooed with a number
that was to replace her name she too
might have been killed
actually but it was getting close to the
end of the war
and the Nazis were losing he was more
valuable to them as a slave laborer six
months later she was ill emaciated but
alive after a long convalescence she
returned to Bratislava she had to accept
that her mother her aunt Susan and her
sister Vera had all been murdered she
went back to her old home and didn’t
really feel a sense of connection until
in the cellar
she found a box and in that box was her
grandmother’s cookbook that’s the book
that I saw Eva cooking from in her
kitchen that’s the book she’s been
cooking from ever since keeping alive
the tastes of that vanished world it’s a
link to her past but also because she
cooks for her grandchildren to her
future so what have I learned
interviewing Eva and the other women in
this project primarily that’s lovely Eva
primarily it’s a lesson about resilience
or what psychologists today call
post-traumatic growth the German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously
said what doesn’t break me makes me
stronger what these women teach is that
even if an experience does break you you
can put yourself together back together
stronger to almost every woman I’ve
interviewed gets to a dramatic point in
her story and then she says and that was
another miracle and they’re right of
course
they had to be luck they’re a tiny
remnant six million others did not
survive so I’ve learned that sometimes
you need a miracle good fortune a break
in the clouds to help you scale a wall
another thing I’ve noticed is that these
women don’t complain at the end of very
hard stories they say to me wasn’t so
bad other people had it worse those who
can’t say that because they really did
have it very badly
they say they survived because of the
support of someone else a mother sister
brother or friend and netter able and
Stephanie Hillier are twins
from Prague in Czechoslovakia now 891
they live in Melbourne Australia around
the corner from each other they survived
for more than a year in Auschwitz in the
section where inhuman medical
experiments were performed each says
that she survived because of the other
we were always optimistic says Anita
otherwise we wouldn’t be here hope
brings you further what are the
characteristics do these women have in
common
first an obvious point they’re all women
now I know the grandmothers usually are
but I’ve interviewed more than 30 men 30
women and only three men these women are
these grandmothers are widows now too
they cope with that loss women are the
great survivors next they’re energetic
full of beans and also practical their
feet are firmly on the ground
they are doers these women not dreamers
they live a full old age which includes
manicures and trips to the hairdresser I
was standing in the home of Rina Navarro
she lives in Jerusalem and she’s a
Holocaust survivor from Libya I asked if
I could upend her kitchen in order to
take some photos and she said to me
that’s her in the Jerusalem market she
said to me something I’ve never
forgotten you can do whatever you like
there’s no one to tell us not to these
women all cook for me even on my first
visit there’s no conversation without
coffee and cake lots of cake
they always insists on seconds sometimes
even thirds you try saying no to a
Jewish grandmother it’s impossible to be
thin on a project like this they cook
from scratch the way that nutritionists
today recommend we all do but they’re
adaptable as their grandchildren become
first vegetarian then vegan and then
gluten-free out goes meat sour cream and
white flour
and they are cooking with tofu cooking
the old recipes with tofu and baking gif
cakes
none of them waste anything if your
recipe calls for egg yolks you use the
egg whites in another dish almost every
woman in fact I think every single woman
that I’ve seen when I’m there while
she’s cooking
she gives leftovers to the local cats
the birds get the crumbs people who’ve
been hungry don’t throw away food and
people who’ve been hungry for them their
greatest joy is sitting with their
families at tables groaning with food
that they’ve prepared the families that
they build and cook for are their
triumph over hardship and evil American
poet John goos love ski is the son of
two Polish Christians who were held in
the Nazi concentration camps he writes
about his father he hates no one not God
not the dead who come to him not the
Germans who caught him not even himself
for being alive he’s a man held together
with stitches he laced himself still
almost all Holocaust survivors were
traumatized today we’d say they had
undiagnosed PTSD as they experienced
nightmares depression and unexplained
rages some talked about their
experiences equal numbers didn’t I’ve
interviewed women who never told their
husbands their stories and didn’t know
what happened to their husbands during
the war but the passage of time did
change that as one woman said to me
after 40 years we started talking and
when they started talking it was often
to their grandchildren many of the
volunteers of the grandchildren who
volunteered to take part in the food his
love project are actually boys now many
of them are men towering over tiny
grandmother’s Eva grin stone cooks with
her grandson Nicholas and her
granddaughter Emily both of them say
they value the sense of connection that
it gives them
I’m cooking with Eva it’s not just
cooking I’m learning my family story
says Emily and she says I have to quote
her exactly or I’ll be in big trouble
she says that she knows that all the
recipes that she’s cooked with Eva that
she’s learning she’s going to keep on
cooking them when it’s just her brothers
and her as a way of holding her family
together when we’re having our
celebrations I know that it’s Eva’s
recipes that’ll be on the table since
Emily rice one of the food is love
grandmother’s told me that I was the
keeper of their memories it’s a role I
like I’m putting together a book called
of course food is love with the women’s
photos their stories and of course their
recipes including the new modern updated
versions everything will be in one place
and no one will have to look and search
for her grandmother’s honey cake on your
chairs you should find a copy of one of
a sample it’s a recipe from evergreen
stone for her delicious sour cherry
chocolate and walnut cake it comes from
her grandmother’s cookbook and it’s on
the table for every birthday for every
grandchild in Australia one last thought
for everyone here and it’s this for all
of you who are lucky enough to still
have a grandmother give them a call drop
by let them cook for you and tell you
your family stories
don’t let these women’s stories fade
into the shadows they’re your stories
our stories – thank you [Music]
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