The Soul of the Story: 13

Summary

The Man Who Calculated Death: Episode “The Soul of the Story: 13” Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Man Who Calculated Death
• Host/Author: PodcastOne
• Episode: The Soul of the Story: 13
• Release Date: June 3, 2025
• Description: In 2013, journalist Suzanne Rico receives a life-altering call as her mother, Gabriele, nears the end of her life. Gabriele unveils an unfinished memoir detailing her tumultuous World War II childhood and entrusts Suzanne and her sister, Stephanie, with the daunting task of completing it. This journey forces them to confront the hidden truths of their ancestry, particularly the enigmatic role of their grandfather, Robert Lusser, an inventor associated with the Third Reich. As they delve deeper, they uncover profound mysteries and face personal reckonings that challenge their understanding of family and history.

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1. Introduction: A Personal and Professional Partnership

The episode begins with Lisa Joyner, Suzanne Rico’s best friend and the podcast's executive producer, engaging in a heartfelt discussion with Oscar, a key collaborator on the project. This “Bonus Episode 4” offers an intimate look into the creation of the podcast, focusing on the women central to the story.

Notable Quote:

Lisa Joyner [00:47]: “Bonus Episode 4 the Soul of the story is special for a couple of reasons... here’s Lisa.”

2. The Weight of Unfinished Stories

Lisa delves into the immense responsibility placed upon her and Suzanne by their mother's final request to complete her memoir. The task transcends mere writing; it involves unmasking a dark family history linked to their grandfather's involvement with the Nazis.

Notable Quote:

Oscar [00:47]: “Can you unmask this, you know, dark history and find out who killed my mother? You know what I mean? That's a lot.”

3. Emotional Turmoil and Persistence

Lisa openly discusses her struggles with the emotional burden of the project. She recounts moments of doubt and the constant battle to maintain her resilience, emphasizing her mother’s mantra, “stick to itiveness.”

Notable Quote:

Lisa Joyner [02:29]: “I felt like I needed to know those things before I could bring closure to that book, to her story... every question spawned 10 other questions.”

4. Confronting Family and Ancestral Shadows

The conversation shifts to the complex emotions surrounding the family's past, particularly the grandfather’s role in the Third Reich. Lisa reflects on the difficulty of reconciling his actions with his humanity.

Notable Quote:

Lisa Joyner [13:25]: “He was a man of his time. You know, this isn't in the podcast either, and it might be in the second season... he was a flawed human.”

5. The Strength and Sacrifice of Women

A significant portion of the episode celebrates the resilience of the women in Suzanne’s family. Lisa highlights her grandmother’s quiet defiance against Nazi ideology and her mother's relentless pursuit of protecting the family, even at great personal cost.

Notable Quote:

Lisa Joyner [04:06]: “My grandmother deserved to be more than just a footnote to our family story. She was the one that kept the family together.”

6. Humanizing Historical Figures

Oscar and Lisa discuss a pivotal moment where Lisa interacts with a Holocaust survivor connected to their family history. This encounter fosters a profound understanding of humanity, forgiveness, and the complexities of individual legacies.

Notable Quote:

Lisa Joyner [17:25]: “He had empathy, not only for me, but for my grandfather, which blew me away completely.”

7. The Personal Impact and Legacy

Lisa shares the emotional journey of transforming from a detached journalist to becoming an integral part of her family’s narrative. She expresses her hopes that the podcast will honor her family's legacy and provide her children with a tangible connection to their heritage.

Notable Quote:

Lisa Joyner [37:42]: “At the end of it all, I feel like it's kind of a love story to my mom. Like my ode to my mom, my goodbye, my memory of her, my everything.”

8. Preserving History for Future Generations

The discussion concludes with Lisa emphasizing the importance of preserving family stories to keep loved ones alive in memory. She reflects on how her children unknowingly absorbed pieces of the story, ensuring the legacy continues.

Notable Quote:

Lisa Joyner [36:15]: “If my family is okay with it, I will be okay... this is my story. You might think it's my grandfather's or my grandmother's or my aunt's story, but it all comes through me.”

9. Conclusion: A Blend of Personal and Historical Narratives

Oscar and Lisa wrap up by acknowledging the unique blend of personal and historical narratives that “The Man Who Calculated Death” offers. The podcast not only uncovers hidden family truths but also humanizes historical figures, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of the past and its enduring impact on present identities.

Notable Quote:

Oscar [24:19]: “While it's not all women, it's women-centric, and it kind of shines a light on what it was like to be a woman in that time.”

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Key Themes and Insights:

• Intergenerational Trauma: The lasting effects of World War II on Suzanne's family highlight the pervasive nature of trauma across generations.
• Complexity of Human Nature: The grandfather's dual legacy as both a creator of weapons and a man showing empathy underscores the multifaceted nature of individuals.
• Role of Women: The podcast emphasizes the often-overlooked perspectives of women during wartime, showcasing their strength and resilience.
• Healing Through Storytelling: Completing the memoir serves as a therapeutic process for Suzanne and her sister, allowing them to reconcile with their past.
• Preservation of History: By documenting and sharing their family’s story, Suzanne ensures that the experiences and lessons of the past are not forgotten by future generations.

Impact and Future Directions:

"The Soul of the Story: 13" serves as a reflective piece within the broader narrative of “The Man Who Calculated Death.” It deepens listeners' understanding of the personal stakes involved in uncovering historical truths and sets the stage for future episodes to explore unresolved mysteries and further family revelations.

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Note: This summary excludes non-content sections such as advertisements and introductory segments, focusing solely on the substantive discussions between Lisa Joyner and Oscar. For a comprehensive understanding, listeners are encouraged to engage with the full episode.

Transcript

[Suzanne]

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[Lisa Joyner]

Go team. Feel that synergy.

[Suzanne]

That's why the zebra searches for you. Comparing over 100 insurance companies to find savings no one else can Compare. [e-mail] who's ready for the trust fall? Hey everyone. Bonus Episode 4 the Soul of the story is special for a couple of reasons. First, the discussion is between me and Lisa Joyner, my best friend and the podcast's executive producer. And second, Lisa gets to the beating heart of the man who calculated death by asking me about the women in the story. She jumps right in with my mom, who kickstarted this whole project with her dying wish that my sisters and I finish the memoir she'd started about her war torn childhood. Here's Lisa.

[Oscar]

Well, to be quite fair, I mean, what she did put on you was quite a task. I mean, it's not. It's not, can you, you know, close up my belongings and close my credit card and maybe sell the house? It's can you unmask this, you know, dark history and find out who killed my mother? You know what I mean? That's a lot.

[Lisa Joyner]

I mean, if I had known everything that it was going to take, I don't know if I would have had the strength and the courage and the stick to itiveness. That was one of my mom's favorite words, is stick to itiveness. To actually do it, because it turned out be so much more work than anyone expected. And the reason behind that is she had written this memoir from her child's perspective. But as a journalist, I didn't feel like I could finish that in the way that I needed to without understanding the whole story. And she didn't go into my grandfather's connection to the, I have to say, Yahtzee party, which is so dumb for the AI, you know, to that party, to the National Socialists. She didn't go into what her responsibility was, you know, really as a, as a, as a descendant of a Nazi scientist. So I felt like I needed to know those things before I could bring closure to that book, to her story. And it was like every time I started digging, it just got deeper and darker and deeper and darker and deeper and darker. And it's like every question spawned 10 other questions.

[Oscar]

Going through this process, though, when you started, you know, investigating, asking questions, doing travel, talking to your aunts, you know, all that stuff, did you get to a point where you went, I can't do this. I absolutely can't do this? This is too much because it's too emotional. It's too loaded.

[Lisa Joyner]

Like 5,000 times. You know that. Can I call you on it? If we didn't say it? I mean, honestly, I am so not a quitter. You know, this about me. I am not a quitter. And I quit 5,000 times. And then I would sort of slink off into the corner and lick my wounds and try to bring myself back down to a place where it felt manageable because it would get so unmanageable and it would just feel. Feel like I can't. I cannot. I can't. Right. I don't have the skill. I don't have the talent. I don't have the reporting skills. Like, it brought into question all of my belief in myself as a journalist. Right, okay.

[Oscar]

So you were fighting. You were struggling with your identity at this point. Oh, totally.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah, totally. Because, you know, I mean, we have done so many stories. You know, plane crashes, you go and do a story on the. On the families, you know, and. And I love to do profiles on other people. But I'm now looking at myself and my mom and my sisters involved and my cousins and everybody in my family, and it just was like.

[Oscar]

And your grandfather.

[Lisa Joyner]

And my grandfather. Right. And my grandmother. I mean, I had never given my grandmother more than two seconds of thought in my entire life.

[Oscar]

Is she more a living person? I shouldn't say living. Is she more of a person?

[Lisa Joyner]

Now I know exactly what you mean. She is alive to me, and I feel like I know her. And that has been one of the most. The greatest gifts of this whole long saga and passion project is that my grandmother deserved to be more than just a footnote to our family story. She was the one who kept the family together. She is the one that in her quiet ways, resisted the National Socialist doctrine of hate, you know, and she is the one. Again, I'm getting the goosebumps. My mom must be around. But she's the one that deserves a lot of the credit. And it always went to him. Everyone was always talking about him. So now.

[Oscar]

But that's the case with most spouses and women and mothers.

[Lisa Joyner]

Exactly.

[Oscar]

But here's the thing. She was the one who started out learning about her history and what she had to overcome and who she was and where she was from.

[Lisa Joyner]

That's a big spoiler for the podcast.

[Oscar]

But that's all I'm saying.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah.

[Oscar]

She's a fascinating lady who spent her adult life protecting her family.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah. And this is something that I'm going to throw out there because it's not in the podcast. And I actually wish that I had thought about it when I was making it. And I don't even know if you know this. So my grandmother was awarded the Mutokolitz, that's the Mother's Cross, in 1941 when she had her fifth child. And it was this big deal that, you know, basically it was an award for having children for the glory of the Reich. And she kept everything. She kept my grandfather's Knight's Crosses. She kept all of his newspaper articles, all of his awards, all of everything. She threw that thing away. That thing does not exist. My aunts have no idea where it was. Nobody ever saw. Doesn't have any. There is no evidence of it in the family archives. No picture of her wearing it, nothing. She wanted nothing to do with that.

[Oscar]

Well, and there's a point in the podcast that really, for me, sums up who she is as a woman, and you'll have to listen to it to get that point. But it's a point where, as a mother, as somebody who cares for other human beings more than themselves, illuminates who this woman is. And it's a point where she discards something that is deadly and awful for her family. And that made me realize when we were discussing it, as we were producing this, like, who this lady was, you know, and. And what her. What set of sort of import her family was to her and, you know, her constitution, you know, she was. She was very determined into, you know, her thoughts and the beliefs that she had. Well, what.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yes, and what I also. What breaks my heart from my grandmother is in 2024 and in the last 20 years, the discussion around depression, anxiety, being. Trying to be a mother and do everything and have it all, and like, okay, she was in a world war with the husband who was creating warplanes with five children, and no definition of help, of anxiety, of ptsd, of depression, nothing. So when she started to fall apart, when her husband was gone and when her city was firebombed and she lost her home, there was nowhere to turn. She had nobody. And so I think about that from our current zeitgeist and the perspective of, you know, we all need help, we should be able to reach out and we should be able to say, hey, I'm not feeling great today. You know, and. And there's. There's safety in that. In that community. She had nothing. Yeah, she was just doing it all on her own.

[Oscar]

Have you made that connection between your grandmother and your mother.

[Lisa Joyner]

Just now? I did, yeah. Because my Mom, My mom, for years, she just suffered with her own ptsd. And she. She did her best to outrun it and to deal with it and to bury it in work. Right. You know, three kids, a PhD at Stanford, full time job, a speaking gig, you know, traveling, all that stuff. And she damn near killed herself. And it didn't. She never put it together until the end of her life that, that she was suffering from severe, severe ptsd. And I don't think that either, whether you're talking about my grandmother or my mother, you don't go through something like a terror bombing, a firebombing of an entire city when you are in the middle of it and 10,000 people die. You come out scarred.

[Oscar]

Yeah. And Suzanne, imagine if you were a child at that time. A child, you can perhaps make some sense out of it. And I'm saying perhaps with a big underline, when you're a grownup, when you're an adult and you're trying to protect your family, and you're trying to protect their emotional well being and their psychological well being, but as a little child, you don't know the. You're so out of control.

[Lisa Joyner]

Right. And I can't understand that because I live in this world where, knock on wood, I will never be in a cellar cowering, as my building in my city burns above me. But my sister and I did go to the city of Kassel and we found that building and we got into the cellar and it hasn't changed much. It's just kind of an empty, dark, dank space. And we sat there for a good like 45 minutes to an hour, just kind of thinking about what it would have been like, what it would have smelled like, what it would have sounded like with sirens going on outside and bomber planes flying over and the sound of the fire and people screaming and people screaming. I mean, I just. And that's what kills me about my mom, because I was. I've never been able to talk to her about this, you know, and it's. It's not my fault, but it's too late to say. I'm so sorry that that happened to you. Yeah, I never, I never. I never talked to her about it. And I regret that.

[Oscar]

What would she say right now?

[Lisa Joyner]

There go the goosebumps again.

[Oscar]

I mean, I'm getting them because I.

[Lisa Joyner]

Know you have a mom and my mom loved you. I think that my mom. What I hear her most saying to me through the last six years is, keep going. Yes, keep going, honey. Keep going. Because I have wanted to quit And I've been so frustrated, and. And it's. It's kind of made me physically sick at times, the stress. And I always hear that, like, keep going, honey. This is worth it. Keep it up. And so yesterday, as you know, our trailer just went live, and we bumped up into the top Apple 100 of the history podcast, which was so exciting. And I was happy for, like, 30 seconds. And then I heard my mom say, keep going. Like, this is not the end yet. We have to keep pushing this forward, to push it out there, to make it break through the noise. Because it's an important story in this day and age happening.

[Oscar]

It's always an important story, but especially now.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yes, I think it is a really important story, and it brings the lessons of the past back into focus right here in the present so that hopefully we can do better in the future.

[Oscar]

Isn't that what history is? When you're sitting in your classroom and you're a kid and you're like, I'll never use this, it's like, yeah, you will.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah, you will.

[Oscar]

Yes, it informs the future.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yes, it does. Very much.

[Oscar]

She. While I believe what you say is true, that she would say, keep going, honey, I also believe, and I have the benefit of having known your mom, she would also say, live in the moment, too, to enjoy the moment of what is happening.

[Lisa Joyner]

Okay. Yeah.

[Oscar]

So let that be a little bit of a reminder.

[Lisa Joyner]

She would. She would. She would say. She would say that I should. That I should stop worrying and obsessing over every little detail and just kind of let the universe believe in the universe and let the universe move things forward. I think she would.

[Oscar]

After doing all of this and all this research and talking to all these different people and getting. And reading things about your grandfather you'd only heard prior to this, really sort of family lore, you know?

[Lisa Joyner]

Totally.

[Oscar]

How do you feel about him now? Are you still mixed?

[Lisa Joyner]

Do you still have mixed emotions, or.

[Oscar]

Has there been some sort of clarity?

[Lisa Joyner]

Very mixed. Both Very mixed emotions and a lot of clarity. You know, I went into this with two ideas that I was going to try to apply to my investigation and my research. And one was that I did not want to try to redeem him. That was not my goal. And the other one was that I wasn't going to try to condemn him. So I tried to understand him. Understand him. To take all of the different thousands of bits of information that I could get about this man and put it together like a mosaic into a human being that I could have empathy for. Right. Because empathy is the opposite of hate. I didn't want to hate him. Do I wish that he had made some different decisions? Certainly I do. Do I think that I would have made different decisions? Certainly I hope I would. But I'm not in World War II as an aeronautical engineer with five children and the Luftwaffe offering me a killer job making war plans. So my grandfather. It would have been so much easier for me if it was a black and white, good and evil type of thing. All right, he was a bad guy or he was a good guy. Much easier. There were so many shades of gray to him and things that he did. You know, this isn't in the podcast either, and it might be in. In the second season, but, you know, he. From. From what I hear, he was a guy who sent care packages home to his deaf brother and he would stop for injured animals on the highway. Right. For me, a person that would do either of those things, there's gotta be something good in them. Now, he also built a weapon of mass destruction for Adolf Hitler. So that is a big check in the badge if you're doing the frozen prize. Yes, but that's the thing, is that he had to come together as this complex character that he is and that we all are. You know, I don't think any of us can just say, well, good for me. I am perfect, or, you know, I am awful. Unless you're, you know, a serial killer or something horrible. He was a narcissist. He was a product of his time, the 1920s, the 1930s. He cheated on his wife. He ignored his kids. He was working all the time. He was a man of his time.

[Oscar]

He was flawed human.

[Lisa Joyner]

He was a flawed human.

[Oscar]

Using that word, human. To me, from day one, when we discussed this podcast, this was a story of humanity for me in the way that you described it, as this human who has this past that is so tied to our world history, but also as this father, as this husband, as a person who cares for sick animals or whatever it is. This story and your journey through it, to me, is about humanity. It's about learning who we are, what place we have in the world, and forgiveness. You know what I mean?

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah.

[Oscar]

And another really special, really special moment in the podcast is when you come face to face with somebody that you typically wouldn't get along with or you.

[Lisa Joyner]

Wouldn'T have anything in common who should really hate me, you know, or dislike me.

[Oscar]

And that took a great deal of courage. I want you to go back to that time, and as you're walking up, what did that Feel like.

[Lisa Joyner]

It was probably one of the most nerve wracking moments of my career as a journalist, because you're constantly meeting new people as a journalist and asking them questions and knocking on doors and doing all of that stuff. But again, this was the first time that I had this really personal connection. And Oscar, the person I was going to meet, who is the Holocaust survivor, and me, the granddaughter of somebody who made a weapon that he was forced to build as a child. As a child, I was, I would say terrified is not really too strong of a word because I didn't know what to expect. I didn't. I thought, this guy, why would he not hate me? You know, I mean, I am. I have that. Would you call it a stain? Whatever it is, I have that legacy that's mine to own. But what he did is he gave me a lesson in humanity and he. He had empathy, not only for me, but for my grandfather, which blew me away completely. And Oscar gave me the strength and the courage not only to look into my family past, but to accept who I am because of it. You know, I have never considered myself the descendant of a. Of a national. You know, I don't want to say the word Yahtzee, but of a Yahtzee engineer. I have to accept that. I don't necessarily want to embrace it. I'm not proud of it. No, no.

[Oscar]

It doesn't define you, but it is part of your history.

[Lisa Joyner]

It's part of my history. It's part of who I am. And, you know, America, I think, has been going through quite a change in zeitgeist about, you know, slavery and. And, you know, if you look far enough back in anybody's history, you'll find something that's not pretty. Yeah, right.

[Oscar]

You don't have to go too far for me. Right.

[Lisa Joyner]

I mean, you truly don't. But I had not. I'd never had that identity before, and now I do. And let me tell you, the first time I ever heard anybody introduce me as that, I was like, oh, my God, I'm out. I'm getting under the table. It was horrible to hear that. Yeah. But he has given me sort of the grace and the courage to. To go there, to really go there.

[Oscar]

And the gift that this man gave you as well. Uh, because. And I don't want to give anything away.

[Lisa Joyner]

This is the problem. This is the problem.

[Oscar]

Let's hang on a second. Standby.

[Lisa Joyner]

Standby for airplane taking off from Bob Hope Airport.

[Oscar]

It sort of works well with the interview, though. Yeah, planes.

[Lisa Joyner]

Exactly. It's a B17 bomber.

[Suzanne]

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[Oscar]

And I'm not giving anything away because you have to listen to it. It is so moving, was he showed that all any human being really wants is to be heard.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah.

[Oscar]

And to be seen.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah.

[Oscar]

And you gave him that opportunity.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah.

[Oscar]

And coming from such different backgrounds, from kind of polar opposite, you were able to give him that gift as an old man.

[Lisa Joyner]

He's my great good friend.

[Oscar]

Yeah.

[Lisa Joyner]

You know, he's, we've, we've developed this, this friendship that by all accounts should not be. Should not be. And I, I mean, I love Oscar and I love his wife. I love his family. They're, they're just good people. And the fact that he agreed to let allow me into his home and talk to him about the horror that he endured. But the beauty of Oscar is, is that's not what defines him. Right. He made. He came to this country in the 1950s. I'm not going to tell you how many people in his family were killed, but it is so many that you can't even grasp that number. He came here, he built a life. He. He was a plumber. He opened a plumbing business. He raised four children. He's been married to his wife for a hundred years. No, not a hundred, but since like 19.

[Oscar]

Now.

[Lisa Joyner]

You've talked a while. Exactly. Sorry for Oscar and Margo. They're amazing. They've, you know, and he is a joyful human being. You know, he's got a lot of joy in him, and I respect the hell out of that, because you could let that be the definition of who you. Well, I'm a Holocaust survivor. He's so much more than that. That is just a piece of his identity, and I just respect so much who he made himself into. And, you know, he says he still has nightmares, but he doesn't let that dictate, you know, every minute of his life.

[Oscar]

One of the other things that I love so much about this podcast is that we are really seeing, with a little nudging, the perspective of the female perspective. We're seeing you and your sister and your mom and your other sister and your journey together and your grandmother. And I think that what really differentiates the story, aside from it being so personal, is that we don't see Those World War II stories with the woman protagonist, you know, the people. And that perspective is hardly visible in the history books.

[Lisa Joyner]

Right.

[Oscar]

So I think, you know, while it's not all women, it's women centric, and it kind of shines a light on what it was like to be a woman in that time.

[Lisa Joyner]

My Tantas, my aunties, and my mom. So my mom had more. She had five kids altogether, but it was the three girls.

[Oscar]

I mean, she had five siblings.

[Lisa Joyner]

She had five siblings, but then the three girls, Trouty, Heidi, and Gabby, they were the triangle that was strong enough to get them through the worst of it, right? And then there's me and my sister Stephanie and my sister Simone. And we were the triangle that got us through our mom's death. Right. I was so laid low by that. And without my sisters, I don't know that I. That I would have come out the other side. And they have embraced my journey. They've helped me, they've come with me. And between the six of us, my mom, my aunts, my sisters, and me, it's like an adventure through time. You know, like, we reach across time, and I feel like somehow we get there and my grandmother does come alive and join us. And that is cool, you know, it's really cool. So I love all the women in this story. They're all flawed, except for me, where every one of them is flawed, but especially my Tantas, they tell their story so honestly. They don't pull punches. They don't try to parse their words or think about their words. They answer every question with, really, this raw honesty that I appreciate. And they say. I mean, they talk about going into the Hitler Youth, you know, and they tell the stories of that. That brings that time alive. And what else? What more can we ask?

[Oscar]

Yeah. Well, it's going to be interesting when people start to hear this, how absolutely in love with your tantas they're going to be.

[Lisa Joyner]

I mean, he says that.

[Oscar]

It's so true. I mean, I fell in love with them. And having known you as long as I have, never really knowing them, they're extraordinary women with incredible stories, and I'm just as happy that their story got out as your mom's. Totally. You know, because they really. Boy, they're just. They're just forces.

[Lisa Joyner]

They deserve so much of the credit for the podcast's completion, because without them, I could never have done it. Right. And it's the same as you that every time I listen to the podcast, you know, if I'm going through it or working on it and I hear one of my aunts come up, I go immediately into this calm place because I'm like, they've got it handled. I don't need to do anything. They just need to talk.

[Oscar]

Yeah.

[Lisa Joyner]

And, you know, I appreciate the fact that they also do not try to go in with. With the mindset of, oh, we want to redeem him. Oh, he was fine. He was good. They don't. They don't talk about him like that. They talk about the truth as they see it.

[Oscar]

Yeah.

[Lisa Joyner]

Which was very different, interestingly, between all three of them. Right. My mom had a very different opinion of her father than my Aunt Heidi, than my Aunt Trouty. Right. And I think that's really interesting.

[Oscar]

That's true. In everybody's family, though, there's a different dynamic and there's a different perception my brother and I have that it's like, you were there. It was the same thing. And he's like, no, this is how it happened for me. Okay.

[Lisa Joyner]

Okay.

[Oscar]

But it's fascinating to hear all of their, you know, have their input and their perspective on this very personal story. We've talked a lot about it being so personal, but in a huge way, this has implications. And it's a historic story as well. I mean, it's a story that even if you majored in history, you may not have even known about this. Correct.

[Lisa Joyner]

Right. For sure. I mean, one of the beauties of the man who Calculated Death is that my aunts did take so much archival material and hold on to it. You know, they didn't just shove it in a box and it's in, like, a storage somewhere where they can't remember when I asked them to go get it all, they were like, okay, when you can. Oh, we'll have it tomorrow. I'm like, oh, okay.

[Oscar]

So I got it in the other room.

[Lisa Joyner]

We have. In one case, she does say that, but we have a story written by my grandfather called the story of the V1, the world's first cruise missile. He tells the story in his own words. That's mind blowing. And then there was one moment where I was up visiting my Tantahidi and we were talking about my grandfather, and I said, you know, I'm so sad that I never got to meet him and I never got to hear his voice. And she goes, oh, well, haven't you ever heard the speech that he gave in 1950? I was like, wait, what? She goes through her desk, pulls out a DVD and pops it into her computer.

[Oscar]

She had no dvd.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yes. She had the old film put on dvd, fit for her. Pops it in, and up comes my grandfather for the first time I see him. And that was like a ghost coming back to life, right? Yeah.

[Oscar]

You've seen pictures. You haven't seen a movie.

[Lisa Joyner]

Then I hear his German accented English as he is Talking about the V1 and the death and destruction that can be wrought by these missiles and how he was working to. You could call it, atone for that. I mean, that's. I don't want to spoil that either, but he changed a lot after World War II, and he changed his focus, the focus of his career, from taking lives to saving them. And that's. That's redemptive. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So we have all of this amazing material and films from the 1920s and 30s of my whole family.

[Oscar]

This is a really hard question. I know what I mean. It's going to be hard to distill it down, but what was the hardest part of this whole thing?

[Lisa Joyner]

Solving the mystery of my grandmother's death. Solving the mystery of my grandmother's death.

[Oscar]

What did you know?

[Lisa Joyner]

Going into it, I knew that she had been killed. Hold please. We could cut this out in post, but it gets louder.

[Oscar]

Oh. As it goes on.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah.

[Oscar]

Kind of makes sense right now, though.

[Lisa Joyner]

We're under attack. Thank God we're not, right? Thank God that we live in a country I know. Knock on wood. So at the beginning, what I knew was that my grandmother was killed in a bombing on March 13, 1945. And the legend was always that that bombing was revenge by the Allies for my grandfather's vengeance.

[Oscar]

Weapon.

[Lisa Joyner]

Right. Makes perfect sense. I mean, they were out in the middle of nowhere in a farmhouse on the edge of the woods. Filled with women and children, like, who's going to go and send one plane in and bomb the farmhouse? So there's a German documentary that they did about 20 years ago on my grandfather, and that crew is very, very good. And they tried to figure it out, and they could not figure it out. And when I went in, I sort of steeled myself for the result to be that I would never know. My mom died not knowing who killed her mother. And I was kind of like, okay, I have. This is probably going to be the answer. And at first it was, you know, I mean, I hired researchers in Washington, D.C. at the National Archives. I hired researchers over in England, you know, to go through the Royal Air Force records. I, hi. You know, I, I. This was, A lot of. This was in Covid, so it wasn't possible for me to physically go there. And then I met Matt Dietz, who you'll meet in the podcast, and the once he's a former fighter pilot and the head of the history department at the US Air Force Academy. And the second that I told him that my grandfather had been the chief designer of the BS109 fighter plane. Yeah, he was like, nerd alert, Alert, alert. Sorry, Matt. He was like, I'm in. What do you need? And I was like, well, do you think you could go into the database and pull these records and blah, blah, blah? So he helped me and we went through every, you know, step of the way over a year, took a year, and we figured it out. I'll give him a lot of the credit, maybe most of the credit. I mean, he, I don't know that I would have been able to do it without him and he wouldn't have been able to do it without me. Yeah, yeah, we were, we were a good team. I love Matt. So for sure, hands down, that was, that was the one. Remember when we started this, that wasn't even going to really be that much of a part of the podcast. And now it takes up two and a half episodes.

[Oscar]

Well, it's a great story. Yeah, it's a really great story.

[Lisa Joyner]

It's mind blowing.

[Oscar]

And as we sit here, you know, basically whenever you, you decide to put this out, you know, we'll say on the eve of, you know, your story going out to all these listeners, what's happening for you?

[Lisa Joyner]

You know, there needs to be a new word for, like, excitement and terrified all at once. To terror. I know. Excited.

[Oscar]

Excited.

[Lisa Joyner]

I like that. I'm exc. That's what I am. I can't. And, and the other word that I'm trying to find, which we need a new one. So bring it on, people. Is anxiety. That doesn't have a bad connotation because anxiety does have a negative connotation. And I do feel anxious because I don't know how it's going to be perceived and because it is so personally, it's very, very important for me that it, that it's relevant and that it's impactful and that people, you don't have to like it, but you have to, like, begrudgingly respect it. Maybe this, this, this work that I've done. Um, so I'm anxious in a, in a good way. I'll probably. If everyone hates it, I'll be anxious in the way.

[Oscar]

Stay tuned.

[Lisa Joyner]

But that's what is, like what I'm living with right now as we, as we creep up to really putting it out in the world. This, this thing that you've helped me create and that is now ready to fly the nest.

[Oscar]

It's like delivering the baby. It's worse.

[Lisa Joyner]

It's worse. At least I got epidural. At least I got an epidural in the hospital. I'm like on top of the world at one second, and then the next I'm down in the dumps. I think it's going to be amazing and great at one second and then I'm sure nobody's going to like it at the next. And so it's like I'm just ping ponging all over the place.

[Oscar]

Okay, you need to look into that therapy. Yes. How important is it that your sisters, your family, your tantas, those people like it?

[Lisa Joyner]

More than I can say. More than I can say. If. If my family is okay with it, I will be okay. I want to do my mom proud, but I also want to do my aunts proud and my wider family. My sister Stephanie is almost damn near as much of a part of this podcast as I am. And she was just amazing. She was my rock. She's smarter than I am. She's funnier than I. You know, she's just, she holds so much of it together and she's actually heard it, so I know she loves it.

[Oscar]

She's. She's heard everything.

[Lisa Joyner]

She's.

[Oscar]

Oh, yeah, okay.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah, she's heard it.

[Oscar]

She likes it. And she gave you the seal.

[Lisa Joyner]

She loves it. And she was like, go, just go. Mom is with you. She's proud of you. Just go. And I'm like, so, yeah, I want those super, super important to me. And you know, the thing is, guys, is this at the end of the day, this is my story. You might think it's my grandfather's or my grandmother's or my aunts or my mom's, but they all told me their stories, and I synthesized it and came up with a story that really is mine. I can't say that, oh, this is only my Aunt Heidi's story or only my mom's or only my grandfather's. It's a mix of everybody's that has somehow come through me and. And now is going out there. So I hope I did everybody proud.

[Oscar]

And how difficult was it for you to go from Suzanne the journalist to I'm the subject of this podcast?

[Lisa Joyner]

Well, you know how much I hate that. That was, like a leap. That was. That was not an. It's awful because when we were first working on this, I would, like, finish drafts of scripts, and I would bounce them off, and she's like. Like, bring it. Like, where are you in the mirror emotions? And I'm like, well, I'm a journalist. I'm not supposed to put my emotions in. She's like, this one's about you and your family. So that was. That took me a long time, and I'm still really uncomfortable with it, because that's My training is you. You're. You're. You're objective, impartial. You know, you're the omniscient narrator. Not here.

[Oscar]

Throw that shit away.

[Lisa Joyner]

I can't. I couldn't, right? I had to throw that shit away, and it was really hard to do it. Um, I. When I hear myself doing it in the podcast, I'm like, oh. But I had to dig deep, and I had to. At. At the. At the end of the. At the end of the day, I had to figure out about what this meant to me, and I think I did. And at the end of it all, I feel like it's kind of a love story to my mom. Like my. My ode to my mom, my goodbye, my memory of her, my everything. This is all my love for my mom is coming out in this.

[Oscar]

I. Yeah, we talk about your mom and your sisters and stuff, but I want to go just to the other parts of your family, because this definitely affected them because you've been working on it for so long. How important or what does it mean to you that you were able to leave this for your boys?

[Lisa Joyner]

Huge. Huge. Because they had no idea of any of this. And now, over six years, they can kind of recite the podcast at my heart. Because I sit here. This is where I sit a lot of the time. And I'm working on it. And so I'll be playing things back and adjusting and things like that. And they'll be walking around. My husband, too, my poor husband. Like, he knows it by heart, too. Yeah. And so my boys, now, I will hear them talking to their friends or, you know, a teacher or another parent, and they'll say, like, oh, yeah, you know, my grandfather was Robert Lesser. And they'll start explaining the story. And I listen to them explain what they have absorbed by osmosis. They haven't listened to the podcast yet in. In its entirety, but they've heard so many pieces of it. So if I can give them a piece of their history that they can then pass on to their children, I think I've done one of the most important jobs that we have, which is keeping our loved ones who. We. Who we've lost alive. Right. Because when you forget to talk about them and say their names, they disappear. They disappear. That's when they really die. And my kids were 5 and 7 when my mom died. They loved her so much. But little Ada, he doesn't remember that much. And so he hears her voice in the podcast and she reads these. These fairy tales. And she had done that for them when they were little, and I used it in the podcast. And so, you know, if that's not going to keep her alive, I don't know what will. And I think that they appreciate it now, but they're going to appreciate it even more.

[Oscar]

Oh. If they decide to have children, I think that's going to hit them hard.

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah.

[Oscar]

Yeah.

[Lisa Joyner]

And then my voice will be in it when I'm six feet under.

[Oscar]

Yeah.

[Lisa Joyner]

You know.

[Oscar]

Yeah.

[Lisa Joyner]

So that's, it's. That's been a huge silver lining to it all.

[Oscar]

Yeah. That's what I always thought about when I was looking ahead as we were doing this. It's like, what is this going to.

[Lisa Joyner]

Mean for your kids?

[Oscar]

You know, how's that going to affect them?

[Lisa Joyner]

Yeah, it's a. I mean, I feel like my mom's memoir was her best last gift to my sisters and me. And so maybe this was my best last gift to my kids. Pass it on.

[Suzanne]

Follow the man who calculated death in the Wondery app. You can binge the entire series early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spot.

[Narrator]

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