A new series will explore some of contemporary history's most dramatic events through the eyes of those who lived through them.
We'll Meet Again, reported and hosted by Ann Curry, will premiere at 7 p.m. Tuesday on Panhandle PBS.
Each episode will reveal the powerful bonds forged among people who now, against the odds, have the chance to reunite with someone who transformed their life.
In upcoming episodes, viewers will hear stories of a Vietnam War baby desperate to find the American father she last saw 40 years ago, a military chaplain who helped a stranger through the trauma of 9/11, a Japanese-American girl interned in 1942 who never forgot the classmate who helped her during her darkest hours, and civil rights workers whose lives were forever changed by the deep relationships they formed in the 1960s South.
Curry and her team search for clues in marriage records and war and immigration documents to reunite those separated by time and distance.
“This series helps people separated by conflict, war and humanitarian disasters find each other again and reveals untold stories of courage, survival, friendship and even love,” Curry said. “This is human history — not from the point of view of kings or politicians or generals — but of everyday people on the front lines of massive events they have no way to control. Their stories tell us something about what we are made of.”
Upcoming episodes include:
- "Children of War," premiering Tuesday: Reiko, a Japanese-American woman sent to an internment camp as a child, hopes to find the classmate who stood by her in the face of anti-Japanese sentiment, and Peter, who fled the Nazis with his parents in 1938, searches for the family who befriended him in the last refuge open to the German Jews: the Shanghai Ghetto.
- "Rescued from Mount St. Helens," premiering Jan. 30: Two people who survived the eruption of the Washington state volcano on May 18, 1980, discuss how the disaster influenced their lives.
- "Lost Children of Vietnam," premiering Feb. 6: Tina, born in Saigon, searches for the American father she last saw more than 40 years ago, and Nam hopes to find Gary, the Texas cowboy he met as a 12-year-old refugee and who inspired his dream of coming to America.
- "Heroes of 9/11," premiering Feb. 13: Patrick, a businessman visiting New York, searches for Emily, the photographer’s assistant who comforted him after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Timothy, a military chaplain plunged into chaos at the Pentagon, hopes to thank the fellow chaplain who gave him the courage to carry on.
- "Freedom Summer," premiering Feb. 20: Fatima, a teenager from New York, volunteered to register voters in Louisiana during the 1960s civil rights movement. Now, she returns to the South, hoping to find Thelma, the daughter of her host family, whose courage in the face of racism was unforgettable. Sherie searches for Lefty, the charismatic civil rights activist whose commitment to nonviolence inspired her own lifelong involvement with social justice causes.
- "Coming Out," premiering Feb. 27: Tom longs to find Maria, the friend he trusted with the secret of his sexual orientation and who saved him from brutal electroshock conversion therapy in the 1960s. Paul, who was University of New Hampshire student body president in 1973, searches for Wayne, who organized the first gay student organization on campus and whose bravery helped Paul accept his own sexuality.
Episodes premiere at 7 p.m. Tuesdays and will be available for online viewing the following day.
