Tom Gross's video: Conversations with friends about their lives: Nidra Poller Paris

Writer Nidra Poller discusses her upbringing; hanging out with James Baldwin and other African-American writers and musicians in 1970s Paris, the origins of the name Nidra, how her Japanese partner introduced her to Israel, and the position of women in the modern world. Discussion by with Tom Gross by zoom at her apartment in Paris, while under coronavirus lockdown, on May 19, 2020. Among other conversations in this series: * Pianist Evgeny Kissin (Prague) https://youtu.be/6zKvyjlvleg Described by The Economist magazine as “the world’s most acclaimed classical pianist” Evgeny Kissin talks about being a child prodigy; his favorite concert halls and musicians; learning new repertoires and visiting Kafka’s grave during coronavirus lockdown; about Stalin’s murder of Yiddish writers, his own love for Yiddish, his support for Israel, and his political views about Russia and the West. * Writer David Pryce-Jones (Wales) https://youtu.be/hK8kppwX7UI David discusses his childhood escape from the Nazis, and about his friendships with Isaac Bashevis Singer, Arthur Koestler, Stalin’s daughter Svetlana, John Gross and others; and about Israel, Italy, and the NY Times. * Tom Gross speaks about his own life https://youtu.be/T4Pg-IDYJYE Paul Lewis asks Tom Gross about his own life experiences and views: growing up surrounded by cultural and literary luminaries in London and New York; Sunday brunches with Elvis Presley’s songwriter; crossing Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin with his grandmother during communism; helping the Roma when almost no one else would; Tom’s close relationship with his godmother Sonia Orwell (the model for the heroine Julia of her husband’s masterpiece ‘1984’); being in Manhattan on 9/11; the Mideast; the importance and legacy of the Holocaust; and other matters. * Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hossein Amini (London) https://youtu.be/_llnKPTT0FE Born in Tehran to a distinguished Iranian family (his grandfather was prime minister under the shah) Hoss Amini speaks about Iran before and after the Islamic revolution, his career as a filmmaker, his work with Martin Scorsese and Harvey Weinstein, his favorite films, and the MeToo movement and racism in Britain. * The last Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff (Jerusalem) https://youtu.be/KEaUhSYX3hI Efraim Zuroff speaks about why he became a Nazi hunter, his pursuit of war criminals all over the world over many decades, and his efforts to make countries such as Lithuania, Latvia and Croatia admit to their own nation’s very substantial collaboration with the Nazi genocide. As the last survivors die out where does Holocaust education and memory go from here? Why did it take the film Schindler’s List to make Holocaust education finally become incorporated into the British education system? Why did the Vatican and Red Cross help Nazi criminals escape? Why were so many doctors Nazis? * Jonathan Freedland, Guardian columnist https://youtu.be/Y_3phYh8WMU * There is also a separate shorter conversation here: Jonathan Freedland & Tom Gross discuss left-wing antisemitism, and English antisemitism https://youtu.be/D8Zcppjh6Tw * John O’Sullivan (Budapest) https://youtu.be/TKspJwfsibg Born to modest parents near Liverpool (his father was a ship steward, his mother a shop girl) John O’Sullivan rose to become one of Margaret Thatcher’s most trusted aides and advisors in 10 Downing Street. In this conversation, he discusses Thatcher’s personality and other leading figures he met. (On one occasion John had breakfast with Thatcher in London, then flew to Washington and had dinner with President Reagan that same evening.) He also discuss Trump’s presidency; the future of journalism; and his lifelong love for musical theatre. * Bahra Saleh (Kirkuk) https://youtu.be/tQM0a9qJ1Jk On being a woman, and fleeing Saddam as a Kurd, in Iraq * Orit Yasu (Shoham) https://youtu.be/xKihFpFrOUg Born to recently arrived Ethiopian-Israeli parents, Orit talks about growing up in Kiryat Malachi, the rescue of Ethiopian Jews by the Mossad, her participation in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting memorial while on a school trip to Colorado, on how NYC is too crowded, her trip to see her parents village Ethiopia, and why many Ethiopian-Israelis vote Likud. * Lord (David) Young https://youtu.be/AzmrBuZ0OoM Lord Young talks about his ten years in Downing Street working closely with Margaret Thatcher, his five years working with David Cameron, and about Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and modern multicultural Britain.