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The Historical and Cultural Legacy of Siberia

Journalist Frederick Kempe is a foreign correspondent and Berlin Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal. He spent five weeks traveling thru Sibera and has written an account of it in, "Siberian Odyssey." In many areas, Kempe was the first American there. He visited a nomadic tribe of reindeer herders, a former Gulag site, and the site of a Stalinist mass grave, talking to survivors of the former, and children of victims from the later. Kempe made the trip shortly before the August 1991 coup that ushered out the Communist Party.

22:47
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Other segments from the episode on July 21, 1992

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, July 21, 1992: Interview with Frederick Kempe; Interview with Peter Medak; Review of 8 Bold Souls' album "Sideshow."
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15:20

Hungarian Film Director Peter Mendak

Medak's latest movie, "Let Him Have it," is the true life story of a mentally handicapped London teenager who was wrongly accused of helping to kill a policeman in 1952. Medak's own life reads like a movie: he was born in Hungary, fled the Nazis and later the Communists, arrived nearly penniless in London, worked his way up through the business, and eventually made movies like "The Ruling Class" and "The Krays."

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05:49

A New Album Led By "The Best Jazz Composer Under 40"

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the new CD by Edward Wilkerson's group, "8 Bold Souls." It's called "Sideshow," on the Arabesque Jazz label. Wilkerson came from Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, which spawned several cutting edge icons of jazz.

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20:55

Frederick Kempe Discusses the "New Germany."

Editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe, Frederick Kempe. As a journalist, he's covered Germany for over twenty years, and is also the son of German immigrants. His new book "Father/land: A Personal Search for the New Germany" (Putnam) is his exploration into his family's past in Germany, and an analysis of Germany today.

Interview
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21:38

Traveling "In Siberia."

Travel writer Colin Thubron. His new book about his travels In the heart of Siberia Is "In Siberia" (HarperCollins). It's the third In his trilogy on the Russian landmass which Includes "Where Nights Are Longest" and "The Lost Heart of Asia." Thubron has also written books on the Middle East, China, and Central Asia.

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