Female heroes of WW2 and the Iranian Revolution

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

We hear about Polish war hero Irena Sendler who saved thousands of Jewish children during the Second World War.

Expert Kathryn Atwood explains why women’s stories of bravery from that time are not as prominent as men’s.

Plus, the invention of ‘Baby’ – one of the first programmable computers.

In the second half of the programme, we tell stories from Iran.

Journalist Sally Quinn looks back at the excess of the Shah of Iran’s three-day party, held in 1971.

Two very different women – the former Empress of Iran, Farah Pahlavi, and social scientist Rouhi Shafi – describe how it feels to be exiled from their country.

Finally, Barry Rosen shares the dramatic story of when he was held hostage in the US embassy in the Tehran for 444 days.

Contributors: Irena Sendler – WW2 hero. Kathryn J Atwood – author. Sally Quinn - journalist. Farah Pahlavi – former Empress of Iran. Rouhi Shafi – social scientist who fled Iran. Barry Rosen – former hostage.

(Photo: Children rescued from the Warsaw Ghetto by Irena Sendler. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me,
0:09.3	Max Pearson, the past brought to life by those who were there. This week, stories from Iran's history,
0:15.8	including a lavish party for the Shah. Anybody who could wear a tiara and get away with it or a crown did.
0:22.5	And the necklaces and the bracelets and the earrings were just incredible. Two women won the
0:28.9	Empress, no less, exiled from Iran after the Islamic Revolution and the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis
0:35.0	in Tehran that lasted 444 days.
0:38.5	I want you to sign this admitting to your spying.
0:43.4	And I said no.
0:45.9	And he said, I'm going to count from 10 to 1.
0:49.4	And if you don't sign it, I'm going to blow your head off.
0:51.7	That's all coming up later in the podcast.
0:53.9	But we're going to begin during one of. That's all coming up later in the podcast. But we're
0:54.3	going to begin during one of the darkest moments of the Second World War, and with a young
0:59.3	Polish woman who risked her life to save thousands of Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto.
1:05.5	Jane Wilkinson has this remarkable story. Heroes do extraordinary things, and to me what I did was not extraordinary.
1:14.9	It was just normal.
1:16.5	Those other words of Irina Sengler interviewed for a 1992 documentary film.
1:23.1	Back in 1939, she was a 29-year-old Catholic working in the Warsaw Welfare Department when the war began.
1:31.3	At dawn on September 1st, the German war machine steamrollers into Poland.
1:35.0	The German Air Force begins its systematic bombing of undefended citizens and towns of helpless women and children.
1:40.7	Poland's agony has come.
1:42.8	British Pathet.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -139 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.