What One Father’s Story Teaches Us About Courage and Humanity | Robert J. Wolf | 170

Update: 2025-11-24

Description

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What if the key to fighting hate wasn’t politics or arguments online, but one courageous story that makes you feel what’s at stake?

In this powerful episode, Amanda is joined by guest, Dr. Robert J. Wolf, retired radiologist and author of Not a Real Enemy: The True Story of a Hungarian Jewish Man’s Fight for Freedom. Robert shares his father’s miraculous survival as a Jewish man in Nazi and Communist-controlled Hungary, his family’s multiple escapes, and how those 20 “impossible” miracles eventually led to a new life and medical career in America.

Amanda and Robert explore how his decades in medicine, a near-fatal health scare, and the discovery of his parents’ manuscript shifted his own mindset about purpose, time, and what really matters. Through stories of resilience, integrity, and redemption, Robert shows why antisemitism isn’t just “history", it’s a present danger that affects everyone, and why indifference is never neutral. This conversation is for anyone who wants to understand history on a human level, feel inspired to use their voice, and remember that one story can change how we see the world.

💡 In this episode, listeners will discover:

✡️ How Robert’s parents survived the Holocaust and Hungarian Revolution and rebuilt life in the U.S.
🩺 Why ninth grade and a role model father led him into a 35+ year career in medicine
⏳ How a sudden heart condition forced him to ask, “Do I want to die at a desk or truly live?”
📖 The unbelievable way he found his father’s autobiography and turned it into an award-winning book
🧠 Why indifference is more dangerous than disagreement and how prejudice shows up in subtle ways
🕯️ How teaching Holocaust history and sharing his father’s story became his way of fighting antisemitism
🧱 The core messages of the book: hope, integrity, resilience, and redemption in the face of hate

⏰ Timeline Summary:

[1:03 ] “I’m just a guy”: who Robert is at his core, his love for sports, food, history, and his mission to fight antisemitism
[2:25 ] Growing up in Detroit as the child of Holocaust survivors and one of only a few Jewish kids at school
[5:09 ] The ninth-grade moment that sparked his desire to go into medicine
[7:58 ] A life-threatening heart condition, being “on the wrong end of the needle,” and rethinking time as the only true commodity
[10:29 ] Discovering his parents’ manuscript and how he began turning his father’s autobiography into a biography between radiology cases
[12:57 ] Agents, rejections, and the eventual “bottom of the ninth” acceptance from a Holocaust specialty publisher in Amsterdam
[20:24 ] Using the book to educate about antisemitism
[22:47 ] Key themes: hope, determination, fear, resilience, redemption and why kids today are afraid to send their children to school
[24:02 ] The “20 miracles,” how readers respond to the book, and why some say it should be a movie
[28:47 ] Why nobody who knew him years ago would have predicted he’d write a Holocaust book and why it was “better late than never”