Heavyweight

Summary

Snap Judgment Presents: Heavyweight

Date: May 14, 2026
Podcast: Snap Judgment and PRX
Host: Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight), Snap Judgment Announcer
Main Subject: Deborah (102-year-old woman)
Producer/Co-Narrator: Phoebe Flanagan

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Episode Overview

This episode of Snap Judgment features a special collaboration with Heavyweight, diving into the poignant true story of Deborah, a 102-year-old woman who rediscovers a trove of letters from her first love, Jerry Robbins, who was killed in World War II. As Deborah revisits her past, the episode becomes an exploration of memory, grief, love, and aging — with characteristic warmth, humor, and emotion. It’s a moving journey through personal history, the enduring impact of wartime trauma, and what it means to carry and finally release the weight of unresolved stories.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rediscovery and the Unopened Box

[02:15–04:47]

• Deborah recounts how her daughter Lee’s desire to declutter led to opening a box in her Bronx "snake pit" storage room.
• The box, marked “go through,” contained 256 letters from Jerry Robbins, written when Deborah was 21.
• Jerry and Deborah were engaged before Jerry was killed in WWII.
• Deborah admits she never forgot the letters, but “found his death so disturbing, I couldn’t take it. So I sequestered that aspect of my prior life away and never looked at it again.” (Deborah, [04:47])

2. The Impact of Re-Reading Jerry’s Letters

[06:11–07:51]

• Deborah begins reading every letter, postcard, and V-mail, reliving her youth and falling in love with Jerry all over again.
• Jerry’s letters reveal he was an aspiring writer, passionate and prolific.
• “How can a 101-year-old woman whose hormones have long since shriveled, fall in love again?” (Deborah, [07:35])

3. The Family’s Reactions: Entering “Jerryland”

[08:00–10:36]

• Deborah’s daughters, Lee and Lauren, note that their mother began obsessing over Jerry, neglecting other interests.
• “All she did was live in Jerryland... every time I called her up...it would be, Jerry said this and Jerry said that.” (Lauren, [08:24])
• The family worries as Jerry seems to overshadow the memory of Deborah’s late husband Irving, prompting sibling feelings of displacement and strangeness.

4. Completing the Mandate: Honoring Jerry’s Legacy

[12:03–13:41]

• Deborah feels a mandate to do something meaningful with the letters: “Now that I’ve lived this long, my mandate is to do something with these amazing letters.” (Deborah, [12:03])
• Jonathan Goldstein proposes sharing Jerry’s writing with an audience, believing it might help Deborah both honor Jerry and move forward.
• “He’ll always be 21... he’ll always be a writer who never got to live his potential. So there’s this quality of stuckness or stasis. Getting his work out there...it’s almost like she gets to the end.” (Lee, [12:54])

5. Reading Jerry’s Letters: Glimpses of a Lost Love

[17:18–24:31]

• Jonathan and producer Phoebe read through all 256 letters, revealing Jerry’s wit, creativity, and deep affection for Deborah.
• Jerry’s cleverness is shown in mock ballots for date invitations, charming “Jerryisms,” and stories with Twilight Zone-like twists.
• Jerry shares his emotional world from boot camp:
  • “I didn’t mind walking because I wasn’t alone. You were with me, walking by my side and keeping me company all the time.” (Jerry, as read by Jonathan [21:44])
• Deborah and Jerry maintained a ritual of thinking about each other at 10:00 PM each night, their “nightly meeting.”

6. The War, Loss, and Aftermath

[25:00–27:47]

• Jerry’s final letters and deployment: a rushed goodbye on the subway, then departure for the front lines.
• Jerry dies when his troopship is torpedoed on Christmas Eve, 1944, just miles from its destination in France.
• The scale of the disaster and the government’s coverup are discussed; the Army reveals little to grieving families.
• Jerry’s poem:
  • “All I ask for God, in the brief second before eternity swallows me up, A glimpse of the world that is to be where no man need make a prayer like mine. Then will I know there is meaning amidst this man-made madness.” (Jerry’s poem, [27:47])

7. Confronting the Past: Grief and Closure

[28:14–30:16]

• The letters bring not just joy, but revived pain and nightmares for Deborah (visions of Jerry dying at sea).
• A genealogist reveals Jerry’s body was actually returned and buried locally—news Deborah never knew.
• “To move on from Jerryland, maybe Deborah needs more than just to revisit the past... Maybe she needs to grieve it.” (Jonathan, [29:00])

8. Visiting Jerry’s Grave

[31:00–39:13]

• Deborah, her family, Jonathan, Phoebe, and Joe Berlinger (Lauren’s Emmy-winning husband and filmmaker) visit Jerry’s grave at Mount Lebanon Cemetery.
• Deborah performs Kaddish and, moved by the sea of young soldiers' graves, offers an impassioned, unscripted plea:
  • “Oh, what a waste. This one 19... No more. No more wars. Please, please, no more wars...Warmongers are thieves of life that was never lived. Man made madness.” (Deborah, [37:55])
• Jonathan observes: “For all the words she’d prepared, these words she said came from the guts...everything, even those buried things, rise to the surface again, searching for light.” ([39:13])

9. Returning to the Present

[39:47–41:32]

• The family returns home, feeling a sense of peace and energy from the experience.
• “I thought it would be painful, and it wasn’t painful.” (Phoebe, [40:00])
• Deb emphasizes the importance of small, daily life moments — the here and now.

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• “It’s okay. I’ve lived long enough. I could take any name.”
  — Deborah, [02:45]

• “How can a 101-year-old woman whose hormones have long since shriveled, fall in love again.”
  — Deborah, [07:35]

• “I always say we become more of ourselves the older we get.”
  — Lauren, [10:18]

• “My lifestyle determines my death style.”
  — Metallica quote, cited by Lauren, [10:36]

• “If you can come to my home, I would be eternally grateful for as long as I last.”
  — Deborah, [13:28]

• “The only way out is to go through.”
  — Writing on the box and recurring motif, [14:00]

• “He’ll always be 21... a writer who never got to live his potential.” — Lee, [12:54]

• "This is the only place, this is the only time. Here and now.”
  — Jerry quote in a letter, [22:58]

• “On that train, I cried hysterically all the way till the last stop.”
  — Deborah, recalling the last goodbye, [25:00]

• “Man made madness.”
  — Jerryism, [20:37]; repeated in Deborah’s plea at the cemetery, [37:55]

• “Too many beautiful, healthy young veterans who are lined up here and probably never had a chance to live... What thieves warmongers are. Warmongers are thieves of life that was never lived. Man made madness.”
  — Deborah, at Jerry’s grave, [37:55]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:15] — Jonathan cold-calls Deborah, leading to the story’s origin
• [04:47] — Deborah reveals why she never opened the letters
• [07:35] — Deborah describes falling in love again at 101
• [10:18-10:36] — Lauren and Jonathan discuss “becoming more ourselves” with age
• [12:03] — Deborah declares her new mandate for Jerry’s letters
• [17:18-24:31] — Reading the letters, stories, and engagement
• [25:00-27:47] — The last goodbye and the tragedy of Jerry’s death
• [29:00] — Plan to visit Jerry’s grave for closure
• [33:00-39:13] — The cemetery visit and Deborah’s spontaneous, emotional plea
• [40:00-41:32] — Reflections on the aftermath and moving forward

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Tone and Storytelling

• The episode captures Heavyweight’s signature blend of empathy, humor, and narrative curiosity.
• Jonathan Goldstein’s narration is personal, gently self-deprecating, and attentive to emotional nuance.
• Deborah’s wit and candor — even at 102 — shine throughout, balanced by her daughters’ warmth and concern.
• The presence of Joe Berlinger and Metallica references add layers of intergenerational resonance.

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Final Notes & Legacy

• Deborah plans to publish Jerry’s collected writings; the family is also developing a screenplay.
• The episode carefully balances nostalgia, loss, humor, and a celebration of resilience, tying past and present together.

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For those who haven’t listened, this episode offers a masterclass in audio storytelling, exploring how the unresolved past persists — and the possibility of release, even after a century.

Transcript

[Host (Snap Judgment Announcer)]

SNAP Studios. Snap Judgment is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not. Not available in all states or situations. Okay, so about a decade ago, I wander into the wrong Chicago Hilton conference room, and there's this guy. He's shaggled, bespeckled, sort of surrounded, speaking to a group of young writers, audio producers and makers. He's talking to them about how to speak to people.

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

And.

[Host (Snap Judgment Announcer)]

And he said something to the effect of, whoever you are, just be there. Just do that. And really, since then, I've marveled watching him do that. This unfolding, evolving, stretching into his own singular voice, now lauded as one of the most celebrated storytellers of our time, Jonathan Goldstein. His podcast is called Heavyway. And on it on heavyway. And if you've been one, subscribe immediately. Jonathan sits down with people to help them solve one of those problems they don't know how to tackle any other way. Maybe a lost connection, unsolved mystery. Perhaps a friendship that ended without closure. Whatever it is, Jonathan digs in and tries to help them make it right. And I kid you not what you're about to hear. I'm in a grocery store, and this episode stopped me. Stopped me in my tracks. And I. I think it's gonna stop you, too. I saw the setup. There is Snap Judgment. Proudly Presents Very Proudly presents Heavyweight.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

Hello?

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Hello, Is this Barbara?

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

No, this is Deborah.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

How are you related to Barbara?

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

I don't know who Barbara is.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Although this might sound like a classic Cheech and Chong routine. It's actually me phoning Deborah. Debra, you should know, is 102 years old, yet it is I who is having the senior moment. Oh, my. I'm so sorry. For some reason, I think I thought your name was Barbara.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

It's okay. I've lived long enough. I could take any name.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

I'm phoning Deborah. Her name is Deborah because she made a discovery recently that has turned her life on its head. It all began with a phone call from her daughter, Lee.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

She called me several months ago, and she said, mom, given your age, I'd like to help you clear out your storage room. So I said, fine. When are you coming? She said, now.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

The storage room is a room in Deborah's Bronx apartment. She affectionately calls it the snake pit. It's where expired vitamins and broken kitchen appliances collect while cleaning it Out. Her daughter Lee saw something that caught

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

her eye, and she walked out of the storage room with a cardboard box.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Written across the top of the box were Deborah's initials. And beside those initials, underlined in black ink, were the words, go through. When Deborah lifted the lid, she uncovered something she'd stashed away long ago and had never gone through.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

256 letters written to me when I was 21.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

The letters, tied up in ribboned bundles, were from Deborah's first love, a man named Jerry Robbins.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

We were engaged to be married.

[Host (Snap Judgment Announcer)]

He.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

Okay, I'm sorry.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Jerry was killed in World War II on Christmas Eve, 1944.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

My future was shredded, as well as the man that I loved.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

And had you forgotten about these letters?

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

I didn't forget. I just found his death so disturbing, I couldn't take it. So I sequestered that aspect of my prior life away and never looked at it again.

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

She has a really powerful ability to flip the switch, as she calls it.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

This is Deborah's daughter. Lee.

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

Put it away, not think about it.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

And that's just what Deborah did. To escape the grief of Jerry's death, she threw herself into graduate school, got a master's degree in social work. And from there, life just kept on spooling. She married a man named Irving, who was an attorney and a good provider, and together they raised three kids. But all the while, through 64 years of marriage, through every move, every new chapter, Deborah kept the box with its lid closed shut. Until recently. Nearly 80 years after Jerry's death and over a decade after the death of her husband, Irving, Deborah was finally ready to open the box and start reading

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

every letter, every postcard and every V mail, email. The letter V, as in victory, right?

[Host (Snap Judgment Announcer)]

Right.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Will you listen to me? V mail, as I only later learned, was a method the government used to get soldiers letters to their families. And as Deborah read these letters, something began to happen.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

I fell in love with Jerry again.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Not only did the box contain Jerry's handwritten letters, but also a number of his poems and short stories. Jerry, Deborah tells me, was an aspiring writer with big dreams.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

His absolute motivation was to write, write, and compose. If he had a pencil or a pen in hand, he'd seek out paper to write on.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

The sheer volume of letters, their depth and detail attest to this. And each day, sometimes all through the day, Deborah would read and reread Jerry's words. And as she did, she felt him return to her. It was like time had collapsed.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

How can a 101-year-old woman whose hormones have long since shriveled. Fall in love again.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Deborah's daughter Lee noticed the change that came over her mother, how re energized she had become. And Lee thought that was wonderful to a point.

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

There's a thin line because she started slipping into what we would call Jerry land.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Oh, what is that?

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

That is not to label it too much, but a kind of overarching obsession with all things Jerry.

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

All she did was live in Jerryland.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

This is Deborah's other daughter, Lauren.

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

And every time I called her up or would see her, it would be, Jerry said this and Jerry said that.

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

She would spend all my conversations with her just talking about Jerry.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

It sounds a little bit. The way you describe it is like, you know, like when a teenager's in love, you know?

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

They're just drawing, like, the person's name and hearts, you know, in their notebook or something.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Yeah.

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

You just can't help but talk about it all the time.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Lauren says their mother stopped watching movies, reading books, attending the classes she took online.

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

I was concerned about it. Lee was concerned about it. We all kept saying, here, mom, here's a great book. Read this, watch this. Why don't you invite people over? And it was truly like she was in a bubble.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Also concerning to Lauren is how, since the discovery of the letters, Jerry has threatened to eclipse her late father, Irving. For proof, you need look no further than Deborah's living room. On an entry table by the door is a photograph of Irving. But beside her favorite chair is one

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

of Jerry sitting right next to her. And my father is off to the side. What the hell?

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

How do you.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

How does that make you feel?

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

Weird. Strange.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Debra, for her part, insists her feelings for Jerry have no bearing on the love she feels for her late husband. But this passionate side of Deborah is new to Lauren.

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

I always say we become more of ourselves the older we get.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Do you think so?

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

I think so. Don't you?

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

I'd like to think so, yeah. I mean, it certainly seems like with your mother, I mean, she continues to grow, you know, she does.

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

There's a great line I love to quote, and it's from Metallica. Metallica, the heavy metal dads. And they. One of the lines is, my lifestyle determines my death style. And I think it's a great line like, not, she's not dying, but, you know, I think we just keep becoming more.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Yeah.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

And.

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

Oh, there. I'm sorry for all these text. My husband just got nominated for two Emmys.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Oh, my goodness. That's fantastic.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

As it happens, Lauren's Husband is the award winning documentary filmmaker, Joe Berlinger. Among his work, Some Kind of Monster, an exploration of Metallica's experience in group therapy.

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

He just got nominated and my whole

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

family is like, yay, that's great.

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

Congrats.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Good for him. But you know what's also good as good, if not better than being nominated for TV's most prestigious award? Helping people. And right now, I'm going to help Deborah with something she's taken to calling her mandate.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

When I was a daughter, I had an obligation to my parents as a student, to my teacher in my school, as a wife and a mother to my family. But now that I've lived this long, my mandate is to do something with these amazing letters.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Deborah hopes to honor Jerry by giving his writing an audience. It occurs to me that I have an audience, and perhaps if Deborah and I read through the letters together, it would fulfill her mandate and allow her to move on. I put the idea to Lee. Do you think like, getting something out there into the world would allow her to leave Jerryland?

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

Yeah, I do. Because he'll always be 21. He'll always be a writer who never got to live his potential. So there's this quality of stuckness or stasis getting his work out there. It's almost like she gets to the end.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

Can you come to my apartment?

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Well, I'm in Minnesota.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

I wouldn't fly out where you are. But if you can come to my home, I would be eternally grateful for as long as I last.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Well, I mean, I would love to see the letters and it would be really nice to meet you in person.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

Okay, Mr. Goldstein. So come look. Yeah, said the old lady to the young man.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

And so it looks like this 56 year old young man is heading off to New York. Because like the writing on the box says, maybe the only way out is to go through.

[Host (Snap Judgment Announcer)]

The heavyweight episode continues right after the to break.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Stay tuned.

[Host (Snap Judgment Announcer)]

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[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

256 letters. It took several weeks for my producer Phoebe and me to read them all. Many of the letters were missing dates and locations, but we puzzled our way through, doing our best to bring chronological order. And as we did, a life emerged and a portrait of the young man who lived it. We went through all 256 of the letters.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Oh boy. So you know Jerry?

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Oh yeah. So let' swhy don't we just start off by reading the first letter?

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Here goes. Dear Deb, Finding myself with a few

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

spare moments, Jerry's first letters are from the spring of 1940, nearly four years before he enlisted.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

My mother advised me that she doesn't mind my staying in your house and till all hours of the night. She likes you quite a bit. Which practically makes it unanimous.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Deborah and Jerry had been friends since their elementary school days in Brooklyn, but their friendship was beginning to blossom into something more. What? What were you guys doing until all hours of the night?

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Talking. As passionate as it was, it was never consummated, which is my regret.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

It is a regret.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Oh, intensely so.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Deborah says she was waiting for marriage,

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

but we would have had a hot time together.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

I forgot that I'm being recorded.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Jerry lived over an hour away by subway. And before texting, emails and the prevalence of phone calls, weekend rendezvous were planned out over letters. Jerry's writing is clever. In one missive, he invites Debra out to a show for New Year's Eve. When she doesn't give him a straight answer, he sends a follow up to help you make a decision. And for your convenience, you will find on page four of this letter a ballot. Just check one and mail within the next week. The ballot shows two options. Yes and yes. Be it in his letters or his short stories, Jerry had a way with a closing line. His fiction often showcased an ironic reveal in the final sentence. In one story, the peacenik babbling in the mental institution turns out to be a former war commissioner. In another, the motorist who stops to help a stranded woman turns out to be an executioner on his way to put the woman's son to death. They were like Twilight zone episodes. Almost 20 years before the show went on the air. Jerry shared drafts of these stories along with poems. Deborah appreciated his lyrical turns of phrase.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

I call them Jerryisms. Instead of war, he says, man made madness.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

As a student at Columbia, studying to be a writer, Jerry was exempt from the draft. But in the winter of 1943, he decided to leave school and enlist. Aside from his parents, Deborah was the first person he told since. One of my guiding rules, he wrote, has always been to thine own self be true. I feel I can't stay out any longer. Just paying lip service to my beliefs. From boot camp. Jerry's letters arrived in Deborah's mailbox every day. His clever short stories with the tidy Twilight zone endings gave way to reportage. Jerry detailed the eccentric characters he met. The sergeant with a jaw like a rock, the chaplain who was a secret lush. But he also shared his feelings. In one letter, he described the first time he stood before a mirror and saw himself in uniform, how it gave him chills. As training became more grueling and the thought of war more present and real, Jerry sought refuge in Debra summoning Her presence during lonely evenings at camp or long marches in the heat. I didn't mind walking because I wasn't alone. You were with me, walking by my side and keeping me company all the time. We spoke about a thousand things. My furlough, the invasion, what we're going to do together when I come back. I recited poetry to you, and when no one was watching, I put my arms around you, held you close to me and whispered I love you into your ears. Jerry and Deborah created a ritual which they enacted at 10 o' clock each evening. Jerry called it their nightly meeting. When the hour struck, they dropped whatever they were doing, and in the absence of a telephone, each would simply think of the other. I close my eyes, jerry wrote. The world fades away, and then it's now.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Now was one of our secret words. The only thing that was real was here and now. Through the ebony of night I reach out for you, and from across the wide expanse of sea you come, your eyes flashing, your body warm and curved. This is the only place, this is the only time. Here and now.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Do you want to read another letter? This one will be a special one.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Sure. So here I go again, doing things crudely and probably very badly. Honey, I want to get engaged on my furlough. I needn't add that I'm anxiously and eagerly awaiting your reply. Just say yes.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

And here Deborah recites from memory her reply from over 80 years ago.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

My answer to you is yes. Yes. Yes.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Back at boot camp, time marched on, and in the fall of 1944, Jerry received notice he was going to be deployed. But before his deployment, he was granted a final furlough. So he went home to see Deborah, where he gave her a ring. Together they made plans for the future, talked about everything that lay ahead. Once he was home for good. Then, standing on the subway platform in Washington Heights, they said their last goodbye.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

I can almost feel it. I remember kissing him and saying, this isn't good. I don't know what's happening. And I went into the train and I cried hysterically all the way till the last stop.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

On that train,

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Jerry's company was shipped off to England, where American soldiers were preparing to join the fight in mainland Europe. Unbeknownst to them, they were destined for one of the deadliest campaigns of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge. But they never made it there. Jerry was among more than 2,200 men loaded onto a troopship on Christmas Eve. The ship was bound for Cherbourg, France, just a short trip across the English Channel. But hours later, just five miles from the entrance to the harbor, a torpedo struck. A survivor described the slender silver missile cutting through the water and colliding with the ship as having shaken the vessel from stern to stern. Hundreds of men in the lower decks were killed instantly as the sea rushed into the massive gash. Those who made it to the upper decks weren't much better off. They'd not been briefed on how to lower the lifeboats or free the rafts that might have carried them to safety. That, they were told, was the job of the crew. But the crew, a Belgian outfit, spoke little English and had little loyalty to the American troops aboard. And so it happened that many crew members abandoned ship while the Americans aboard still had no idea they were slowly sinking. Many soldiers were presumed to have gone down with the ship. Others were lost to injuries and hypothermia. In the end, 763 men died. Jerry was one of them. After six months of training, he saw one day of war. The scale of death was so needless, the failed emergency response so poor, that for decades, the US government covered up the details. Survivors risk losing their veteran benefits if they talked. And so when a family was notified that they'd lost a loved one, only the barest details were shared.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

I was in Jerry's parents home, his mother and father, or in the room they handed me the telegram.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

In the months before he died, looking towards the war he was about to enter, Jerry wrote a poem. All I ask for God, in the brief second before eternity swallows me up A glimpse of the world that is to be where no man need make a prayer like mine Then will I know there is meaning amidst this man made madness.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

In a certain way,

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

I've never verbalized

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

this,

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

but in certain way, the discovery of those letters have turned my life upside down because I don't feel as happy as I used to feel. I really don't.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

It's the first time I've heard Deborah say this. I thought, for Deborah, Jerryland was a happy escape. And it seems it can be. But there's sadness there, too. After discovering the box, Debra found herself having nightmares. The letters abruptly end in 1944. So in place of an actual ending, Deborah's mind crafted its own. She dreamt of Jerry in the water. She dreamt of him frozen in the English Channel. And it was like a piece of Deborah was stuck there with him. Recently, though, I learned something that might help Deborah to work herself free. A few months ago, a genealogist friend of the family was doing some digging and turned up something Surprising, something that Deborah never knew. Jerry's body wasn't in the English Channel, nor was it buried somewhere in Europe. Jerry's body had actually been repatriated back to America and interred in a Jewish cemetery called Mount Lebanon. And it turns out the cemetery is not an hour's drive from Deborah's apartment. To move on from Jerryland. Maybe Debra needs more than just to revisit the past or honor the past. Maybe she needs to grieve it. Leaving the house at 102 is not so easily done. And Deborah has yet to visit Jerry's grave. I ask if it might be something we can do together.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

Anything that brings me closer to him. I'm game.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

After the break. Jerry.

[Host (Snap Judgment Announcer)]

The Heavyweight episode continues right after the break. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. My name is Lynn Washington, and we're listening to the Heavyweight episode already in progress.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Just as I'm about to book a minivan for our visit to the cemetery, I receive an invitation to a video conference.

[Additional participant in video conference]

Hi.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Hello. Hey.

[Additional participant in video conference]

Sorry, I had to, I guess, log

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

in Deborah's Emmy Award winning son in law, Joe Berlinger, to come to the cemetery to film for his own project about Deborah.

[Additional participant in video conference]

I mean, we're all such huge fans of Heavyweight that we're so excited that you're engaged.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Yeah, I mean, right back at you. We love what you do. So we have I a pet hamster in my fanny pack. Allow me to explain my lack of enthusiasm about Joe's participation.

[Additional participant in video conference]

You know, when I go out and I do something for Netflix or whatever, it's a little.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

The world of documentary is a hierarchy that breaks down thusly. Netflix documentaries, the top floor penthouse suite. Audio documentaries, the underground parking garage where audio documentarians park their used Ford Fiestas. So as much as I love Joe's work, let's just say Metallica doesn't have two lead guitarists. Let's just say it only has one. And according to the Internet, his name is Kirklee Hammett. And on this documentary shoot, I'm the Kirk.

[Additional participant in video conference]

It's not like we're going to be dueling interviewers or anything like that. I want to assure you of that. I just want to be a fly on the wall and observe what's happening.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Canadian etiquette dictates my not saying no, but I will be documenting you, Joe Berlinger, documenting me as I document Deborah. On a sunny morning in October, we all meet at Deborah's.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

Hello.

[Lauren (Deborah's other daughter)]

Hi.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Hi.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Hi, Jonathan. Deborah is seated by the window, wearing a colorful kerchief around her neck. The sunlight illuminates her shoulder length white hair in a puffy halo.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

I'd like to say a few words, if that's okay.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

Of course.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Deborah has prepared a speech about Jerry that she'd like to recite at his gravesite. In fact, a few days earlier, she left a phone message saying it would be four minutes long, suggesting she'd already timed it and practiced it just to get it. All right. My worry is that with a speech already committed to memory, Debra might have already decided how in how much she wants to feel.

[Deborah (Main subject, 102-year-old woman)]

Yep.

[Host (Snap Judgment Announcer)]

Thank you.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

We load into the van. Deborah, her aide Javi, her daughter Lee, and my producer, Phoebe. Joe seats himself up front. The papa. Ostensibly, it's so he can silently record Deborah and me in the seats behind him. Silently.

[Additional participant in video conference]

So, Jonathan, what are we doing today?

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Well, being questioned on one's own podcast is not unlike being strapped into a baby seat in one's own 14 seater van, which, might I add, one paid for. Rather than demanding that everyone in the van pause their various recording devices so I can throw a full on Kirkley Hammett level artistic tantrum, I instead do this. We are heading off to the Queen's Cemetery. I obey my master. Master. That's a Metallica reference. We ride through Washington Heights where Jerry goes grew up. Past the grounds of the World's Fair, where he and Deborah spent many a summer's afternoon.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

That was the greatest dates we ever had together.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

They marveled over futuristic architecture. The debut of the first television portraits of a hopeful future. When we arrive at the cemetery, we consult the map. The cemetery is so large that it has streets and the streets have names.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Jerry's not on Paradise Avenue, is he?

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

He actually is just off of Paris.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

He is. How about that?

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

Okay.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Okay, we're ready to go.

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

Next phase, Mom.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

Okay, I got the stones.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

We all get out of the car. According to the map, Jerry's grave isn't far. Deborah's aide wheels her towards the Isle of Tombstones.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Okay,

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

what's going through my mind now

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

is a letter from Debt Jerry saying, there's so many things I want to do with you. Oh, my.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

Oh, there. Oh.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

And suddenly, there it is. The headstone. Beloved son and dear brother, Private Jerome Robbins. Jerry.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

Oh, God.

[Additional participant in video conference]

Do you want to do this?

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Okay.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

I can get sherry.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

We brought along the Kaddish. If you wanted to say it, you

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

don't have to bring it to me. I know it.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

You know it. Okay. Yeah. When she's finished with the prayer for the dead, Deborah remains quiet. But then something happens. Something she hadn't planned for or prepared for. Taking in the sight of all those tombstones, she just starts talking.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

Oh, what a waste. This one 19. This beloved one, 22. The other one 20. No more. No more wars. Please, please, no more wars. There are too many beautiful, healthy young veterans who are lined up here and probably never had a chance to live what thieves warmongers are. Warmongers are thieves of life that was never lived. Man made madness. Man made madness. Okay, I said enough, cher.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Deborah will later tell me that she surprised herself for all the words she'd prepared. These words she said, came from the guts. To get through her long life, Debra learned to box up the pain and store it neatly away. But maybe if you live long enough, everything, even those buried things, rise to the surface again, searching for light. Ready? One, two, three.

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

One more step. Mom.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

I know.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

We all load into the van and settle back in for the journey back to the Bronx. How are you feeling?

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

I thought it would be painful, and it wasn't painful.

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

I got a refill of energy. It was a little bit of stealing from his strength, and that really came

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

from being with Jerry.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

A young man at a time when he needed love most conjured a spectral companion to journey by his side. Now, almost a century later, an old woman does the same. It's the sort of ironic twist that could have flowed from Jerry's pen.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Hey, Joe, you want some nuts or a banana? What about a banana?

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

Back in the van, Joe reminds Deborah that it's his daughter Deborah's granddaughter's 31st birthday.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Oh, that's right.

[Additional participant in video conference]

Should we call her?

[Lee (Deborah's daughter)]

Huh?

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Yes.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

When she gets home, Deborah will return some phone calls, maybe take a nap. All the little things that make up a life all the little things that make up the here and now Happy

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

birthday Happy birthday to you Happy birthday

[Joe Berlinger (Lauren's husband, documentary filmmaker)]

to you off key.

[Phoebe (Producer or co-narrator)]

Off key.

[Additional participant in video conference]

Now that the furniture is returning to its goodwill home, now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damaged deposit, take this moment to decide if we meant it, if we tried

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

or

[Additional participant in video conference]

felt around for far too much. From things that accidentally touched.

[Jonathan Goldstein (Heavyweight host and narrator)]

This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Phoebe Flanagan and me, Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Kahlilah Holt. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Chris Neary, Lucy Sullivan, Ben Nadifafry and Greta Cohn. Special thanks also to Daria o', Connor, Jack Efferman and Alan Andrade, the author of the book Leopold A Tragedy, Too Long Secret, which is a great read. If you want to learn more about the sinking of Jerry's Ship. Deborah is publishing a collection of Jerry's writing that will soon be available on Amazon. You can find more information about the [e-mail] her daughter Lee has been working on a screenplay about Deborah and Jerry. As for Joe, he has two Netflix documentaries coming out early next year. Emma Munger mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellowes, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, Bobby Lourd and Emma Munger. Additional scoring by Chris Zabriskie. Our theme song is by the Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. This is the end of our season, the final episode, but we'll be back in the spring with some more fun stuff, so keep an ear out. And we've got a new season coming, coming your way next fall, so if you have a story for us, don't be withholding, okay? Email us at heavyweightushkin fm. Happy holidays to all and thank you for your continued support and listenership. I'm Jonathan Goldstein. Ta ta. Ciao for now. Adieu. Don't use that stuff at the end, but you could put that part in. You could put in the part of me saying don't use that. Don't use that stuff at the end. And then you can put in the part where I'm saying, don't use this stuff. Okay? It'll be fun.

[Host (Snap Judgment Announcer)]

Big thanks to Jonathan, to Pushkin, to the entire Heavyweight team, to Deborah, and if you enjoyed this episode of Heavyweight as much as I did, no, there is more amazing heavyweight storytelling available right now. Wherever you get your podcast. Now you miss a part. Do you need to rewind? Do you need to have more SNAP in your life? The good news is the entire world of SNAP storytelling [e-mail] and the bigger news because there's more. At long last, go behind the story. Get extra Snap you won't hear anywhere else. Deep Dive SNAP Meetup secrets all at SNAP Plus. Learn more at snapjudgment.org KQD in San Francisco is SNAP's orbiting hall of Justice. If you see some techie staring at you with glowing glasses, tell them. Nice try, because no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. On Team snap, the union representative, producers, artists, editors and engineers are members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications workers of America, AFL CIO Local 51. And this is not the news. No waste. It's the news. In fact, you could find some old letters from a former paramour before you open them. Consider then decide. Not today, Satan. And you would still still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is prx.