A new podcast, “The Man Who Calculated Death” is the story of a person coming to terms with an ancestor who worked for the Third Reich. It is scheduled for release on Wednesday, Nov. 6, and is already generating positive buzz. The trailer alone has pushed it to number 63 on the top 100 history podcasts.
On May 16, 2024, the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum hosted an unusual conversation between a Holocaust survivor and a descendant of a Nazi scientist. The event matched an unlikely duo to tell their respective stories.
Oskar Jakob is a Jewish St. Louisan who still has vivid and frightening memories of his childhood during World War II when he was a prisoner at the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. During the May conversation, Jakob sat alongside Suzanne Rico, an actress and journalist. Rico’s grandfather, Robert Lusser, was one of the creators of the V1 flying bomb, the world’s first cruise missile.
Several years ago, Rico sought out a survivor and offer an apology on behalf of her grandfather and she found Jakob. After numerous conversations, the two became friends. Rico initially became interested in researching her grandfather’s past when her mother Gabriele disclosed the family secret. Rico’s mother had been working on a memoir about her childhood in Europe during World War II. Gabriele was dying and her last request to Rico was to “finish what I started.”
Rico, an experienced researcher, dove in with the assistance of her sister Stephanie. What they discovered was shocking.
“We had to follow a trail that was not easy to find or stay on,” Rico said. “So many conflicting, forgotten and unknown stories, which happens when you go 80 years back in time. But at every stop along the way, we dug into our own history, sometimes finding ugly truths squirming around in the dirt.
“And while sometimes we felt like covering them back up again, instead we took a long, hard look,” she said. “Finding out about my own ancestry proved to be one of the most difficult yet fulfilling things I have ever done. Not only did it bring some closure to my mother’s death, but it connected me to people on the other side of history, from whom I could learn and grow. People like Oskar Jakob.”
Jakob’s story is featured in episode 5 of “The Man Who Calculated Death.” The nine-episode podcast will initially be available exclusively on the Wondery+ platform for three months (which is available for $5.99 per month). It will then move to a free platform. Details about subscriptions are available here.
