Radio Play(s) Ep.1 Scene 12
From Old Heads to Young Bloods: Advice from Black Men to Those Who Will Be

Something Else As Human As the War
Scene 6 from Radio Play(s) Ep. 1 Resistance & Resilience

Words: Guy Mendilow & Alison James
Music: Guy Mendilow, Arranged by Guy Mendilow & Chris Baum.
Includes El Amor Yo No Sabía, Trad. Ottoman Sephardi, Arr. Mendilow & Baum

A meditation on inspiring abilities to choose wonder, curiousity and kindness even in difficulty. Based on the true story of Guy’s grandparents, Nahum and Sara Gush Halav.

In 1943, Nahum, Guy’s grandfather, broke out of a Hungarian Arrow Cross work camp to make his wedding. Both Sara and Nahum been working as part of the underground, helping Jews escape to safety. Among other duties, Sara was responsible for obtaining and relaying information from Arrow Cross soldiers and guards.

Nahum ran the “art department” — forging identity papers and other documents. Ultimately, Sara and Nahum escaped to Palestine, then under the British Mandate, aboard a Polish fishing boat. Three boats set out. Theirs was the only one to make it. The other two were torpedoed, and survivors were machine-gunned.

In post-show community conversations, questions are posed about the ways this scene relates to others in the episode. For example, in what ways does the resistance of these Jewish Hungarian teenagers compare/contrast with the resistance of the Black American teenager growing up on the Southside of Chicago depicted in the next scene?
The courage to find joy and humanity even in the midst of difficulty is more than Jewish. It is human. In post-episode conversations, audiences are invited to consider other instances of this sort of strength. For example, Gibson relates this wedding narrative with accounts of Black American slaves separated from spouses working on different plantations, or accounts of freed slaves choosing to stay on the plantation because their loved one remained in bondage.
In what ways is seeking, and practicing, joy and generousity a survival tactic?