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Unsung Hero · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Not everyone gets recognition for their work, even
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  Speaker 1: when they deserve it. The teacher who helps a child read,
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  Speaker 1: or the nurse who notices something wrong with a patient
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  Speaker 1: might never get acknowledged for their contributions. But a hero
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  Speaker 1: doesn't help people for fame or fortune. They do it
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  Speaker 1: because it's the right thing to do. One man, however,
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  Speaker 1: did go on to great acclaim, but not for helping people,
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  Speaker 1: even though that was precisely why he should have been
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  Speaker 1: famous in the first place. Marcel Mangel was born in Strasbourg, France,
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen three. His father, a kosher butcher, had emigrated
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  Speaker 1: from Poland, while his mother had come from Ukraine. Macguel
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  Speaker 1: spent a lot of time with his parents and especially
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed going to the movies with his mother. He was
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  Speaker 1: a big fan of silent film star Charlie Chaplin, who
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  Speaker 1: inspired him to pursue acting later in life. While Mangel
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  Speaker 1: was a kid, he would act like Chaplin, pretending to
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  Speaker 1: be famous figures like Robin Hood and Napoleon while playing
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  Speaker 1: with the other children in the neighborhood. He loved acting,
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  Speaker 1: but unfortunately his chance at a future in Hollywood was
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  Speaker 1: cut short when the Nazis invaded France. Mangel was only
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  Speaker 1: seventeen when he and his family were forced to leave
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  Speaker 1: their home. They settled in Limoges, a small town about
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty miles south of Paris. It was
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  Speaker 1: around this time when the young Mangel connected with his
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  Speaker 1: cousin George longuere longuere escaped from a German pow camp
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  Speaker 1: and joined the French Jewish Resistance. Now he was encouraging
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  Speaker 1: his cousin to do the same. Their fellow Jews in
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  Speaker 1: France were in need of help, and Mangel could do
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  Speaker 1: a lot of good during the war. He also kept
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  Speaker 1: up his acting lessons while attending a technical school in Limoges.
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  Speaker 1: Upon joining the Resistance, Mangel got his start by forging
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  Speaker 1: I D Cards for his fellow members, but was quickly
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  Speaker 1: assigned to a new position helping Jewish children get to
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  Speaker 1: safety so that they could be evacuated out of France.
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  Speaker 1: Mangel was young, which made him someone the children could
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  Speaker 1: look up to. They loved spending time with him, and
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  Speaker 1: because he made them feel safe, they were able to
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  Speaker 1: remain calm while on the run from German soldiers. One time,
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  Speaker 1: man Gel put on a boy Scout uniform and pretended
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  Speaker 1: to be a Scout leader for twenty four Jewish children,
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  Speaker 1: all wearing uniforms of their own. He escorted them to
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  Speaker 1: the French border, where he handed them off to an
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  Speaker 1: ally who helped them cross over into Switzerland. But it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just his young age that endeared him to the kids.
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  Speaker 1: He acted for them as well, performing little shows to
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  Speaker 1: distract them as Nazis patrolled nearby. He was also able
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  Speaker 1: to convey messages to them using hand gestures and facial expressions,
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  Speaker 1: which came in pretty handy when they couldn't speak without
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  Speaker 1: giving away their position. Mangel's efforts and his acting managed
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  Speaker 1: to save the lives of over seventy Jewish children from
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  Speaker 1: the Nazis. They also saved his own life when he
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  Speaker 1: found himself surrounded by thirty German soldiers. He pretended to
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  Speaker 1: be part of the French Army, convincing them that they
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  Speaker 1: were at risk of being killed by an approaching units
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  Speaker 1: unless they surrendered, which they did, every last one of them. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: while he was helping the resistance and saving lives, his
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  Speaker 1: father was captured by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz
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  Speaker 1: in Nto. He did not survive. Manuel and his brother
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  Speaker 1: Elaine had also changed their last name to avoid being
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  Speaker 1: found out as Jews by the Germans. They adopted the Surm,
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  Speaker 1: name of a general from the French Revolution, a name
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  Speaker 1: that Mangel wound up keeping for the rest of his life.
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  Speaker 1: Once the war ended, he was finally able to sue
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  Speaker 1: his true passion. He joined a French theater company and
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  Speaker 1: one a part in a show called Baptiste, which earned
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  Speaker 1: him rave reviews. This success led to more roles where
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  Speaker 1: he demonstrated his unique talents for a particular kind of performance, pantomime.
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  Speaker 1: His biggest and most popular role came in ninety seven
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  Speaker 1: when he created a brand new character named Bip the clown.
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  Speaker 1: BIPs costume was comprised of white face paint, a striped shirt,
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  Speaker 1: and a tall silk hat with a flower sticking out
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  Speaker 1: of the top. For Mangel, it became his signature look.
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  Speaker 1: He grew into a certified hit, putting on sold out
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  Speaker 1: shows without ever saying a word. He called it the
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  Speaker 1: art of silence, an art that turned him into a
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  Speaker 1: household name. However, no matter how successful he became as
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  Speaker 1: a mime, Marcel Marceau would be known to dozens of
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  Speaker 1: Jewish children and adults as Marcel Mangel, the young man
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  Speaker 1: who saved them from the Nazis, an unspoken and unspeaking
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  Speaker 1: hero of War War two and proof that even though
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  Speaker 1: it isn't the most respected art form out there, a
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  Speaker 1: mime is a terrible thing to waste. Prison often has
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  Speaker 1: a way of recentering one's focus. After all, when spending
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  Speaker 1: your time in relative isolation, detached from the outside world,
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  Speaker 1: the free time one has with their mind is oftentimes overwhelming.
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  Speaker 1: By that token, it's no surprise that numerous great minds,
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  Speaker 1: when cast into this isolation, turned out written works that
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  Speaker 1: have impacted the world for centuries. Marco Polo recounted his
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  Speaker 1: travels while imprisoned by the Genoan's Oscar wild Penn d
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  Speaker 1: profound Us after finally securing writing materials from the prison warden,
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  Speaker 1: and of course, Nelson Mandela's conversations with myself was composed
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  Speaker 1: during his twenty seven years in captivity, and in terms
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  Speaker 1: of kept civity, there are not many places that one
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  Speaker 1: would least want to find themselves then imprisoned on the
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  Speaker 1: ship of pirates, because the thing with pirates is that
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  Speaker 1: they don't exactly have a governing principle, which makes their
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  Speaker 1: policy of imprisonment a little loose, oftentimes cruel, maybe even
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  Speaker 1: a little brutal. And that was where Miguel found himself,
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  Speaker 1: along with his little brother Rodrigo, in the year fifteventive,
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  Speaker 1: stowed away in the hold of an Ottoman corsair ship,
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  Speaker 1: imprisoned after a hard fought battle. You could say that
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  Speaker 1: Miguel was not having the best of times. Recently, he
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  Speaker 1: had been suffering from malaria as well as a debilitating
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  Speaker 1: wound in his left arm and chest, the former of
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  Speaker 1: which he would never fully recover from, not to mention
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  Speaker 1: that he could not engage in his true passion writing.
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  Speaker 1: These captive brothers were ticketed for a life of servitude
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  Speaker 1: as slaves in Algiers, the center of the Christian slave
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  Speaker 1: markets in the Muslim world, that is, if no ransom
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  Speaker 1: could be paid. And given the fact that the brothers
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  Speaker 1: were relatively high born, a fact that the Corsairs relished.
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  Speaker 1: The ransom would not come cheaply, and amazingly, the family
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  Speaker 1: did pay the ransom requested, but only for Rodrigo. You see,
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  Speaker 1: they didn't have the money to afford their oldest son
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  Speaker 1: as well. So Miguel continued his time in captivity, moving
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  Speaker 1: on to Istanbul, where he was forced into manual labor. However,
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  Speaker 1: mcguel did not lose himself to the despair of servitude. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: he made quite a name for himself among the captive
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  Speaker 1: community for his strength and courage among fellow slaves, with
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  Speaker 1: numerous historical accounts from his peers mentioning Micguel. Specifically, he
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  Speaker 1: attempted four escapes, each one commended for its boldness and courage,
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  Speaker 1: but in the end all would fail, leaving him right
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  Speaker 1: back where he started. It would take five more years
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  Speaker 1: to spring Miguel from this fate, thanks in part to
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  Speaker 1: a truce signed between the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire.
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  Speaker 1: With his freedom in hand, Miguel was left to pursue
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  Speaker 1: his own ends back in Spain, but he found the
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  Speaker 1: economic climate of his home country almost as taxing as captivity.
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  Speaker 1: In North Africa and Istanbul. He continuously struggled with unemployment
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  Speaker 1: while his family, formerly of the middle class, had fallen
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  Speaker 1: with the rest of the Spanish like them. Despite applying
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  Speaker 1: for numerous positions in America, mcguel continued to find his
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  Speaker 1: future blocked by a sputtering Spanish economy and a lack
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  Speaker 1: of opportunity. All the while, mcguel continued to write while
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  Speaker 1: sustenance was nowhere to be found. He sold his first book,
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  Speaker 1: La Galatea in fifty five, earning him a modest one thousand,
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  Speaker 1: three thirty six Spanish reals, but, as is so often
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  Speaker 1: the case, one moderate success does not spell a lifetime
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  Speaker 1: of creative independence. Despite penning another twenty to thirty plays,
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  Speaker 1: Miguel continued to move from post to post, winning the
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  Speaker 1: occasional poetry competition or two, but never really finding the
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  Speaker 1: promised land that he sought. In fact, he found himself
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  Speaker 1: in worse financial footing than ever before, which landed him
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  Speaker 1: back in prison, this time in the jail of Sevilla, however,
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  Speaker 1: and not chained to the brig of a barbary ship.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever form that captivity took, and he had plenty to
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  Speaker 1: choose from. Believe me, it led, at his own admission,
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  Speaker 1: to the creation of one of the greatest works in
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  Speaker 1: the history of literature, the story of a foolish night
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  Speaker 1: and his happy sidekick. We just want a little more
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  Speaker 1: good in the world. And if you haven't pieced it altogether,
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  Speaker 1: just yet, this Miguel was indeed Miguel de Cervantes and
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  Speaker 1: the book Don Quixote. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Two