logo
episode-header-image
Dec 2018
50m 21s

Adopted By The Man Who Killed My Family

Bbc World Service
About this episode
A child survivor of a Guatemalan army massacre during the country's brutal civil war, the women who cleared up post war Berlin, plus Armenia's 1988 earthquake, how Bokassa became Emperor of the Central African Republic, and Angela Merkel's rise to power. Photo: Ramiro as a child in Guatemala (R.Osorio) 
Up next
Yesterday
The evacuation of Tristan da Cunha and Japan surrenders to China at the end of World War Two
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. We start with a BBC archive interview where one woman recounts what it was like to survive the earthquake and landside in 1961 following the volcanic eruption in Tristan da Cunh ... Show More
59m 50s
Oct 4
India's nine day tea strike and the birth of the Excel spreadsheet
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.Tea expert Sabita Banerji talks about the history of tea in India. We look back at how women teapickers in 2015 fought for justice - and improved the lives of thousands of tea plantation workers.We hear the ... Show More
59m 20s
Sep 27
The origins of Indian cinema and the start of Scouting
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes taking us from India to Texas. Professor Sunny Singh, author of A Bollywood State of Mind, discusses the origins of Indian cinema in 1912. And we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Bollywood ro ... Show More
1 h
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2020
World War One in Africa
At the start of World War One, British and German colonial forces went into battle in East Africa. Tens of thousands of African troops and up to a million porters were conscripted to fight and keep the armies supplied. We hear very rare recordings of Kenyan veterans of the King's ... Show More
9m 27s
Sep 2019
Being black in Nazi Germany
Theodor Wonja Michael was a child when Hitler came to power in Germany. The son of a German mother and a Cameroonian father he faced discrimination and danger under Nazi rule. He has been speaking to Caroline Wyatt about how working as a film actor helped him to survive World War ... Show More
8m 58s
Oct 2021
Polish refugees in Africa
During World War Two, close to 20,000 Polish people found refuge in Africa. They arrived after surviving imprisonment in Soviet labour camps and a harrowing journey across the Soviet Union to freedom. Casimir Szczepanik arrived as a child in a refugee camp in Zimbabwe (then South ... Show More
8m 58s
Apr 2017
The Nagorno-Karabakh war
In April 1993, the Azerbaijani town of Kalbajar fell to ethnic Armenian separatists during the war over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Photojournalist Khalid Asgarov tells Louise Hidalgo how he and his father were among a column of refugees who fled to safety on a two- ... Show More
9m 10s
Jun 2022
Life in the biggest Syrian refugee camp in the world
It's 10 years since Za’atari refugee camp was set up in Jordan to take in the thousands of people fleeing Syria because of the civil war. It's now the biggest camp for Syrian refugees. Mayada Masalmeh and her family arrived in 2013 from their hometown just over the border, thinki ... Show More
10m 17s
Apr 2024
El Salvador's missing children
During El Salvador’s brutal civil war hundreds of children were separated from their families. Some were seized by soldiers during military operations against left-wing rebels, and later found living with new families in Europe and North America. Others were given up for adoption ... Show More
52m 58s
Jul 2021
When war came to Darfur
In the early 2000s, rebels in Sudan's Darfur region took up arms against the government. In response, the Khartoum regime launched a scorched earth campaign along ethnic lines. The Sudanese military allied to a local militia, the Janjaweed, laid waste to villages across the regio ... Show More
11m 34s
Jan 2020
Juana Sales Morales: au Guatemala, «Les causes de la guerre sont toujours là»
Le Guatemala a désormais un nouveau président. Alejandro Giammattei a pris ses fonctions mardi 14 janvier, après son élection de juin dernier. Il succède à Jimmy Morales, embourbé dans des affaires de corruption et de liens familiaux avec le crime organisé et le trafic de drogue. ... Show More
3m 36s
May 2023
German child evacuees of World War Two
Beginning in 1940 thousands of German children were evacuated to camps in the countryside to avoid the bombs of World War Two.These camps were seen as safe places where they could continue their education but also where Nazi beliefs could be taught. Alex Collins has listened to a ... Show More
9m 10s
Nov 2020
'I just wanted to be white'
In the immediate aftermath of World War Two, thousands of children were born to white German women and black American soldiers who were stationed in Allied-occupied Germany. The mixed-race infants were viewed with contempt by many Germans and endured constant abuse and racism. Bl ... Show More
10m 34s
Listen to millions of songs and podcasts on Anghami