Why Jesse Owens Saved Hitler's Mysterious Trees (PTFO Vault)

At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Adolf Hitler gave the legendary runner a gift: four potted oak-tree saplings — one for each gold medal that Owens won, while surrounded by Nazis, in one of the greatest sports performances ever. Correspondent David Fleming examines what Owens did with The Hitler Oaks... and why his decision remains an enduring act of American defiance. (This episode originally aired June 8, 2024.) • Subscribe to Pablo's Substack for exclusive access, documents and invites https://pablo.show/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Love the crown molding.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  No FiOS? Yeah... no thank you.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 0:25Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 0:30Speaker 03

  With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 0:56Pablo Torre?

  This episode is brought to you by Apollo.io. A lot of the stories on this show start the same way. Something that looks pretty simple turns out to be a mess once you look under the hood. Well, it's no different in the sales world. Your team has a tool for finding prospects, a different tool for reaching out to them, and a third for keeping track of it all. On paper, that's a system. In practice, it's a salesperson spending the better part of the day copying names from one tab into another and not much of it actually selling. Apollo.io is a platform that helps sales teams find the right buyers and reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach, and follow-up into one place instead of several separate tools. It's used by sales teams of all sizes,

• 1:40Pablo Torre?

  from small businesses to larger organizations, and it's built for teams who want less manual busywork and more time with buyers. If your marketing and sales teams are trying to work from the same view of the customer, it's worth a look. Sign up for free at Apollo.io. That's Apollo.io.

• 1:58Pablo Torre?

  Okay, so hello, it is me Pablo, entering, invading even your ears because I have done something I have not done before, which is, take the advice of someone who once told me that if people wish to support you financially, if they wish to support your journalism, your very strange future of journalism, meaning your newsroom, your ambitions, your desire to investigate things people don't want you to investigate, you should let them. And so I am. On Substack, my newsletter, at www.pablo.show, we'll put a link in the show notes of this episode, I have turned on paid subscriptions. And if you didn't know I have a Substack, guess what? It's free. And that's still there for you, and it's worth it. But

• 2:43Pablo Torre?

  the paid subscribers who support this show and us will get legitimately cool, personalized benefits to come. We will make it worth your while. We are figuring out, here at PTFO, our post-draft kings' future. And, you know, more good news on that front, I hope, to come. But in the meantime, Pablo.show is where you sign up, click the link in the show notes, help support us, please. Thank you, thank you, thank you on that front. And this, this episode today, is a handpicked episode from deep inside the PTFO vault that we sincerely hope you enjoy. Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 3:29Speaker 05

  When I first met the tree in probably 2016, I thought it was a perfect treat.

• 3:35Pablo Torre?

  Right after this ad.

• 3:42Pablo Torre?

  Flem, I'm a plant guy. I'm a tree guy. If you look behind you, over your shoulder in our studio, that is an homage to an interest that I have long held.

• 3:52Speaker 06

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 3:53Pablo Torre?

  I don't know if you have a property full of greenery, but I don't. I live in the city, here in New York. Thank you for being here, by the way.

• 4:02Speaker 06

  You're welcome. Actually, I thought that's why I was here, to help you with your Limelight hydrangeas, which mine are, mine are really world-class. I'm just gonna go ahead and say that.

• 4:12Pablo Torre?

  I'm jealous. I have like, two dozen houseplants.

• 4:16Speaker 06

  Well, that's, that's pretty good.

• 4:17Pablo Torre?

  But in a simulation of the real thing. And so as the lawn owner, as a guy with his own set of shrubbery, I just expressed jealousy at the outset here.

• 4:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, I get it. But you know, come down, we'll get you into nature. It's called forest bathing. We'll do that. We'll have like a retreat, a retreat. We'll do a little gardening, some lawn work.

• 4:43Pablo Torre?

  It's real, though. Like forest bathing.

• 4:45Speaker 06

  Oh, it's definitely real. Forest bathing, 100%.

• 4:49Pablo Torre?

  Restorative, psychologically beneficial. So all of this brings us to the Olympics.

• 4:57Speaker 06

  Of course. I mean, I'm sure that's where we were.

• 4:58Pablo Torre?

  As is our want.

• 5:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:01Pablo Torre?

  Because there's this photograph, Lam, as we approach the closing ceremonies of the Olympics in Paris. There's a photograph that I think about whenever it's near the end of an Olympic Games. And it's a famous photo that you have done some research into for us that revealed that I had no idea what the [bleep] I was even looking at. So explain when and where and what this photo is.

• 5:26Speaker 06

  We're sort of nearing the end of the Olympics. You start to think about iconic moments. You think about incredible iconic performances. And always in my mind, associated with that is this picture from the 1936 Games.

• 5:42Speaker 06

  From the medal stand of the Games, which were in Berlin at the time. What your eye sticks on with this photo are all the Nazi salutes.

• 5:53Pablo Torre?

  At the top of the medal stand.

• 5:54Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 5:55Pablo Torre?

  Not doing the Nazi salute is who?

• 5:59Speaker 06

  Is Jesse Owens.

• 6:01Speaker 07

  After the fanfares of the Olympic opening comes the most amazing performance by America's black streak Jesse Owens in the 100 meters. The world's most superb runner makes the others look as if they're walking as he wins the final and equals the world's record time. This and his later victory in the long jump may well be the athletic performances of the century.

• 6:18Speaker 06

  One of the greatest Olympic performances of all time, really to this day. Bar none, Jesse Owens in 1936.

• 6:30Speaker 06

  He's receiving one of his four gold medals, but it's in a stadium full of people doing the Nazi salute. And he's next to a row of athletes and other people doing-

• 6:44Pablo Torre?

  Officials.

• 6:45Speaker 06

  Right. And your eye is just stuck on that. And you don't really notice the secret little thing that we discovered that sent us down this rabbit hole.

• 6:55Pablo Torre?

  At the actual center of the photograph, I did not notice this until you told me to like zoom in on it. And when you zoom in on it, you see that he's carrying something that I'd never noticed before, Flew.

• 7:10Speaker 06

  He's holding a tiny little oak sapling.

• 7:14Pablo Torre?

  Why?

• 7:37Pablo Torre?

  All right. So in case you slept through every history class you may have ever taken, I do want to clarify that this is going to be a story that starts with Jesse Owens, who is one of the greatest black athletes of all time, and also Adolf Hitler, who became the chancellor of Germany when the Nazi party came to power in 1933 in the aftermath of Germany losing World War I. Which is why the 1936 Berlin Olympics wound up being this festival of swastikas and Aryan supremacy and anti-Semitic propaganda, as evidenced by that famous picture we just discussed.

• 8:17Pablo Torre?

  But that only begins to explain why Jesse Owens was standing atop that medal stand, surrounded by Nazi salutes, and cradling this mysterious and tiny potted plant.

• 8:34Speaker 06

  So to do that, we have to go all the way back and talk about the Olympic Games and how in 1936 they were allowed to be in Berlin.

• 8:49Speaker 06

  The Games were given to Germany years earlier, actually as a gesture to try and help bring Germany back into the world community.

• 9:00Pablo Torre?

  Spoiler alert, this effort did not pay off.

• 9:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, that was not a great idea. By 1936, of course, Hitler has come into power in Germany.

• 9:12Speaker 07

  Berlin's great day dawns with the arrival of the Olympic flame at the end of its 2,000-mile journey from Greece. And meanwhile, a packed stadium and flag-draped cheering streets greet Chancellor Hitler on his way to perform the opening ceremony.

• 9:27Speaker 07

  Like a modern Caesar, he stands on the balcony to receive the salutes of the athletes of 50 nations.

• 9:33Speaker 06

  The Games go on in Berlin, and part of the ritual of the Games in Germany was the idea that every gold medal winner would receive an oak sapling because of its historic connection to Germany and Germany's history.

• 9:49Pablo Torre?

  And I didn't know this either, but to the German culture, an oak symbolizes, you know, the king of the forest.

• 9:59Speaker 06

  Right, because the oak is usually the biggest, tallest tree. And in German folklore, Germania represents the German people. She's wearing a crown of oak leaves.

• 10:12Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 10:13Speaker 06

  So the oaks are very important, and as a gesture, each person that won a gold medal, along with their gold medal, were given this tiny oak sapling and told to go back to where you're from around the globe and keep these trees, plant these trees, and watch them grow as a symbol of these Games, which on its face is kind of a good idea.

• 10:36Pablo Torre?

  Now, the flip side of this good idea is that these were Hitler's Oaks.

• 10:42Speaker 06

  Correct.

• 10:43Pablo Torre?

  And were called as such.

• 10:45Speaker 06

  They were known immediately as Hitler Oaks.

• 10:48Pablo Torre?

  And so the Hitler Oaks, right, that came back with the US gold medalists.

• 10:54Pablo Torre?

  What do we know about those oaks and what happened to them?

• 10:59Speaker 06

  So there were 24 American gold medals, which means there were 24 oak saplings. And almost all of them were lost or discarded or just gotten rid of.

• 11:11Pablo Torre?

  Right, for the obvious reason of not wanting to have a Hitler oak in your yard.

• 11:16Speaker 06

  Right. Cannot blame anybody for that.

• 11:19Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, a gift bag from history's greatest monster. Not necessarily what I would have put on, you know, in my own front yard.

• 11:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. Thanks Hitler for the merch, but I'll pass.

• 11:32Pablo Torre?

  And so the obvious question then is why the [bleep] would Jesse Owens of all people, Flem, be the one to become the caretaker of a Hitler oak?

• 11:41Speaker 06

  That's what we're gonna find out. But it's not just Jesse Owens. In the last 100 years, an entire community has come together to, they have fallen in love with this tree and they have come together to save this tree.

• 12:07Pablo Torre?

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries or merch or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Love the crown molding.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet?

• 12:56Speaker 00

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 13:45Pablo Torre?

  So, at the risk of just stating the obvious, it is important that we recall what it would have been like to be Jesse Owens in the 1930s, in a segregated United States.

• 13:59Pablo Torre?

  Because Jesse Owens was black, he was not legally eligible to receive a college scholarship, for instance, let alone get on-campus housing. And then, when he finally worked hard enough to make the US Olympic team, despite all of that and more, Jesse Owens discovered that the Games were being held in Nazi Germany.

• 14:25Pablo Torre?

  An event that the NAACP, alongside many, many others, were all saying that Jesse Owens should not attend.

• 14:34Speaker 06

  He was being torn in both directions, whether to go, whether to stay home, whether to take on Hitler, whether to just boycott the whole thing. You have to remember, Jesse Owens, he grew up in Cleveland. He went to Ohio State. Jesse Owens was a world-renowned athlete after the 1935 Big Ten Championship, which some people refer to as the greatest 45 minutes in sports. In the span of 45 minutes in 1935, Jesse Owens set or tied four world records in track and field. He's setting or tying a world record every 11 minutes?

• 15:13Pablo Torre?

  Yes. This is the milieu unto which he has to make a decision of, am I, the greatest track star in America, going to go overseas and essentially enable, potentially a propaganda operation for Adolf Hitler?

• 15:29Speaker 06

  He is the single greatest track and field athlete in the world. But there was a serious and strong campaign to try and encourage him not to go, to just sit it out, to not let his abilities bring attention to Hitler's theories about Aryan supremacy. And so I reached out to Dr. Damian Thomas, who is the sports curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

• 15:56Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 15:57Speaker 06

  And he helped explain what Jesse Owens had to deal with even before the Games.

• 16:04Speaker 08

  At the time, I think people, people were trying to figure out how to best deal with the threat that Hitler posed. Do you appease him? Do you play along? Certainly, there were discussions and people, people asked him not to participate. But a boycott would have largely been unprecedented. And it's a lot to ask Jesse Owens. And we see that there was widespread support of African American athletes to ultimately participate because there were 18 African Americans who participated. And that was by far the largest contingent of African Americans

• 16:47Speaker 08

  who had participated in the Olympics up to that time.

• 16:51Speaker 06

  So there were all these athletes who were going to the Games. The ones who didn't want them to go, they were being branded by the U.S. Olympic Committee as un-American agitators.

• 17:04Pablo Torre?

  Right, so this is an enormous news story. And once he gets there, again, another spoiler alert, Jesse Owens [bleep] destroys everybody. He wins gold in the 100-meter dash, in the 200-meter, in the 4x100.

• 17:17Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 17:18Pablo Torre?

  And then the long jump.

• 17:19Speaker 06

  The long jump, it's one of those, if you see the film of it, it's one of those things where you and I, we've watched athletics, we've covered athletics, we've interviewed athletes. It's one of those moments where even almost 100 years later, your jaw drops. It's almost like he's detached from the gravity of the earth. And when you think he's supposed to start coming down, he keeps going. And you're like... This is 100 years ago.

• 17:46Pablo Torre?

  A hard thing for Adolf Hitler to see and feel great about.

• 17:51Speaker 06

  Right. I'm a human being watching this 100 years later in awe. And then I think, oh my God, Hitler had to watch Jesse Owens do this right in front of his face.

• 18:01Pablo Torre?

  Yes, the entire point was that here was gonna be the proof that Germany was supreme. That white supremacy was was real. And Jesse Owens explodes that for different times. And so this brings us to the thing that I, the most famous image that has been passed down through history, which is the story of what happens when Jesse Owens finally confronts Adolf Hitler face to face. Because Adolf Hitler, as again, the leader of Germany, is the guy who's also greeting all of the athletes at the end. And the story is that Adolf Hitler refuses to shake the hand,

• 18:43Pablo Torre?

  the black hand of the American Jesse Owens.

• 18:47Speaker 06

  And that is part of the mythology that's grown out of what Jesse Owens did. But it's not actually the whole, full, true story.

• 18:59Speaker 08

  So Hitler attended the first day of the Olympics. And what he did is he went and greeted the German athletes who had won medals and had performed triumphantly. The International Olympic Committee went to him and said that you just can't shake the hands of the Germans. You have to shake the hands of all of the winners if you're going to shake hand. And so Hitler decided that he was no longer going to shake anyone else's hand. So then when Jesse Owens wins and there's no handshake, people began to speculate, well, has Hitler snuck Jesse Owens? Is this a racial moment? Is this somehow demeaning to Jesse Owens?

• 19:50Pablo Torre?

  And so I'm just gonna jump in here to say that I did not plan on exonerating Adolf Hitler in any way when producing today's episode. But, yes, Damian Thomas is correct. Hitler's refusal to shake the hand of Jesse Owens in Berlin was not actually specific to Jesse Owens at all. After day one, Hitler did not publicly congratulate any of the gold medalists. But the big reason that so many of us Americans have heard that story and have assumed it to be true for so long is relevant here as well.

• 20:29Speaker 06

  So it turns out that this was a part of the myth that Jesse Owens himself perpetuated for years for a whole nother set of reasons that sort of just takes us further down this story.

• 20:45Speaker 08

  The story became really important for Jesse Owens later on because in his post-running career, he would often make money on the banquet circuit. And this became one of the most popular stories that he would tell about this missed opportunity with Hitler and how he was snubbed. And it was a way of sort of denouncing Germany and their racist policies. And he was celebrated because people wanted to feel good about America vis a vis Germany and vis a vis America's own racial history.

• 21:26Speaker 08

  And so it was a key story that sat at the heart of his ability to make money in his post-racing career.

• 21:38Pablo Torre?

  So the banquet circuit that Dr. Thomas referenced, I did not know that Jesse Owens was making appearances like as a speaker, making money doing that.

• 21:48Speaker 06

  Right, because your assumption is this guy is a worldwide hero.

• 21:53Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 21:54Speaker 06

  He's an American Olympic icon.

• 21:57Pablo Torre?

  He just beat Hitler.

• 21:59Speaker 06

  Surely he comes home to an America where it's ticker-tape parades and endorsements and never has to lift a finger the rest of his life. It's the exact opposite.

• 22:10Pablo Torre?

  No, of course, it's a reminder that, again, we're in the 30s. Jesse Owens is a second-class citizen in the United States.

• 22:19Speaker 06

  I mean, Owens, Owens himself even said, "Hitler refused to shake my hand, but so did the President of the United States."

• 22:27Pablo Torre?

  Right. By the way, this was FDR.

• 22:29Speaker 06

  FDR, that's the America that he came back to. It's a place where he has to work as a janitor. It's a place where he has to work as a custodian.

• 22:39Pablo Torre?

  He's also a gas station attendant.

• 22:41Speaker 06

  It's a place where, when he does get invited to a celebration of the Olympic heroes at the Waldorf Astoria, he's got to go in through the freight elevator.

• 22:53Speaker 08

  Jesse Owens struggled financially. You know, he had some failed business ventures. He had some tax problems. And he was often forced to engage in some things which he would later, later feel a bit embarrassed by in his later life. One of these such examples was when he engaged in a racing exhibition in Cuba. And he raced a horse in an exhibition race.

• 23:28Speaker 09

  Cuba. Jesse Owens, the ebony streak of Olympic Games, celebrates turning professional by racing against a horse. Jesse had a start of 40 yards and 100, and he won by inches.

• 23:41Speaker 08

  There was also a moment where he had a race with Joe Louis. It was a race that he also found to be demeaning because he was crawling and Joe Louis was running backwards. Also during his time, he worked with the Harlem Globetrotters. As a middle-aged man, would run around the court during halftime, jumping over hurdles as part of the entertainment for the Harlem Globetrotters game. So he had to do a number of things like that in order to survive financially.

• 24:19Pablo Torre?

  I did not realize the degree to which Jesse Owens was a circus performer after having accomplished some of the greatest things in the history of sports.

• 24:26Speaker 06

  So Damian mentioned that Owens did find some of those things that he had to do to make a living degrading. And there's a great quote from Owens that said, "People say it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals."

• 24:51Pablo Torre?

  By the way, that isn't just some clever rhetoric from Jesse Owens. Jesse Owens actually wound up giving one of his four gold medals from Berlin to a friend to thank him for helping him find work in the entertainment industry. And by the 1950s, Jesse Owens was reportedly so broke that he used the other three medals to pay for a hotel stay and his expenses in Pittsburgh. But that's not all that awaited Jesse Owens upon his return to America, because not only did the guy work as a gas station attendant, as well as a janitor and a circus performer, his home, his neighborhood, entire urban sections of Cleveland, in fact, had

• 25:36Pablo Torre?

  been financially and ecologically degraded on the basis of race. This was thanks to a legal policy instituted by the aforementioned president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And that policy, which is now illegal today, was known as redlining.

• 25:55Speaker 10

  As part of the 1930s-era New Deal, the government insured mortgages for homeowners to prevent foreclosures during the Depression. Color-coded maps ranked loanworthiness of neighborhoods in more than 200 cities and towns across the United States.

• 26:09Speaker 11

  Green was super good in terms of the risk of loaning in that area, and then red was hazardous.

• 26:15Speaker 10

  Those redlined areas were deemed credit risk because of the residents' racial demographics. Today, those so-called hazardous neighborhoods consist of lower-income minority residents.

• 26:26Speaker 11

  The goal of redlining at the time was to make it subtle.

• 26:30Speaker 06

  Federal government representatives would literally take a red line and mark out areas of cities, hundreds of cities, that they deemed unworthy of investment and risky for things like mortgages and businesses.

• 26:48Pablo Torre?

  It was racism codified. It was discrimination literally mapped onto America itself.

• 26:56Speaker 06

  It created huge sections of cities where if you can't invest, if you can't buy a home there, then over the next decades, over the next 90 years, people wouldn't bother to build parks and grow grass and plant trees. And so these sections, besides being sort of like lacking investment or homeownership, these areas of cities now are 5 to 20 degrees hotter during summers, which lead to exponentially more heat and health-related issues.

• 27:35Speaker 12

  Many red line districts are now the warmest areas in the United States. Research completed by the Museum of Science found red line neighborhoods like Roxbury and East Boston to be, on average, 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than non-red line neighborhoods in Boston. These warmer areas tend to have fewer trees and parks to help cool the air. As a result, residents have higher energy bills, limited access to green space, and disproportionate risk of heat-related death.

• 28:10Pablo Torre?

  So what I am also finding out because of this episode is the degree of scientific research into which health outcomes and life expectancies are tied to trees, to the way in which we need these things, these living things, to help

• 28:29Pablo Torre?

  Create the life that America had promised its people. And this is not just like one random hippie saying this. There is a whole body of research that shows that redlining connects to environmental injustice. And this is a study by Case Western Reserve University, FLAM, which evaluated the map of Jesse Owens's Cleveland and showed that these same neighborhoods, a century later, as you were alluding to, remain the areas most plagued by poverty and crime. All of this being directly connected.

• 29:03Speaker 06

  There was also a study in 2022 by Maryland that pointed out older, larger trees with more canopy can impact variables like heat islands, air quality, soil health, and stormwater management. Higher tree diversity also leads to more resiliency against invasive pests and disease outbreaks. Differences in tree communities and size may help explain why redlined spaces have become more associated with poorer health outcomes and shorter life expectancies for people living inside of them. And the connection back to Jesse Owens is they came back to a place where he lived in Cleveland

• 29:47Speaker 06

  that was purposefully left devoid of trees.

• 29:52Pablo Torre?

  So the full accounting of everything that Jesse Owens was facing, the snubbing of his own president in FDR, the redlining of his of his country and specifically his own home, his own home neighborhood in Cleveland, that just the degradation of being this circus performer character. All of this infuses the four Hitler Oaks that he takes back home with a far more profound meaning.

• 30:16Speaker 06

  I think what happened next is one of the most heroic things that Jesse Owens ever did. Right? Despite all the things that you just mentioned, all the things we talked about, the kind of country that he returned to as an Olympic hero and was still a second-class citizen. Despite all of that, Jesse Owens still has enough hope to take those oaks and not throw them in Lake Erie, not discard them, not give them away. He gets down on his hands and knees and he digs and he plants these trees. He doesn't forget them. He plants them. He plants them. He brings them home to a place devoid of trees, and he plants them in the ground.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Love the crown molding.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet?

• 31:26Speaker 00

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  Don't you want to see the rest? OK, bye-bye.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 31:41Speaker 13

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 31:55Speaker 14

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 32:06Speaker 13

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 32:11Speaker 15

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 32:17Speaker 13

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 33:09Pablo Torre?

  So Flem, it's time to do a thing that I've been waiting to do on this show for a year now, which is some tree forensics. So Jesse Owens comes back home, he has four gold medals, he has four trees. What happens to the Hitler Oaks? Where does he plant the saplings?

• 33:26Speaker 06

  I've been looking into it for you. All right. I know you like the papers. I know you like the notes.

• 33:30Pablo Torre?

  You have your research.

• 33:31Speaker 06

  I've got my research. Okay, so here's what we know about the four oak saplings. Some sources say that he planted one at East Tech High School, which is where he actually went to school, but hasn't been verified. There are other stories that he planted one at his mother's home in Cleveland. Again, that may have been torn down, can't be verified. There are also stories that he planted one on the campus at Ohio State, where he went to school. Again, not verifiable. The only oak sapling that we know for sure that's been authenticated was at James Ford Rhodes High School, where Owens didn't go to school, but he practiced track there because they had a decent track and the conditions at his own school were no good.

• 34:16Pablo Torre?

  So we have the one. We have one Hitler oak still standing at James Ford Rhodes High School.

• 34:22Speaker 06

  Well, not technically. So we've got one tree authenticated, and what happens is around 2017, this oak tree, which is big and beautiful and right and has been on this campus for decades, it begins to reach the end of its natural life, and it's dying. And this incredible symbol is about to go away forever. And you remember that beautiful community that we mentioned earlier?

• 34:55Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 34:56Speaker 06

  That's where this whole community rallies to save a Hitler oak.

• 35:01Pablo Torre?

  And so who are the people who are leading the movement to save a Hitler oak?

• 35:07Speaker 05

  My name is Jeffrey T. Varesbi. I am the Chief Operating Officer at Cleveland Neighborhood Progress. I'm a community development leader.

• 35:15Speaker 16

  My name is Speck Swab and I, and my title is Director of Conservation and Community Forestry at Holman Forest and Gardens. And so a simpler way to say that is, yeah, like I'm a tree nerd, a tree scientist. Love talking about trees.

• 35:30Speaker 06

  These are some of my favorite people that we met on this journey just because, again, they're so passionate and they're so just all in on this project. What happens is this great guy, one of the great guys that we met, Jeff Varesbi, he learns of the Hitler oak right around 2017, right at the exact time when the tree is beginning to die.

• 35:51Speaker 05

  When I first met the tree in probably 2016, I thought it was a perfect tree.

• 35:57Pablo Torre?

  I just want to pause the tape here. That's just one of the great declarations in the history of Palatory, finds out. When I first met the tree.

• 36:06Speaker 06

  Yeah, I haven't met the tree, but I'm proposing a PTFO field trip so that we can all go meet the tree.

• 36:15Pablo Torre?

  We'll have our people call the trees people.

• 36:17Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 36:19Speaker 05

  It was 40 feet tall. It had big branches. It had leaves everywhere. And I was like, this is a gorgeous, amazing tree. And the tree partners at Holden immediately looked at me like I had three heads and like, no, that thing's clearly dying.

• 36:34Speaker 16

  A lot of times they'll actually like produce a lot more acorns or whatever their seed is because at the end of the life, they want to make sure they can put as much effort into reproduction as possible to pass on their genes. I've even heard people call it like the glory of a tree under stress because then sometimes they're just covered with flowers and you're like, this tree is doing great. It's producing so many flowers and so many seeds, but it's because it's under stress and it knows it's going out. And so it just spends that last burst of energy to try to make sure it sends its genetics forwards.

• 37:03Speaker 06

  You know, I just want to join in with the, with the, with the tree nerds and point out the, the sort of the, the beautiful moment that, that they're describing, which is when a tree reaches the end of its natural life. It's, it puts all of its final energy into trying to ensure that its life will continue.

• 37:24Pablo Torre?

  The glory of a tree under stress is truly a beautiful.

• 37:29Pablo Torre?

  Scientific concept.

• 37:31Speaker 06

  It's the second best line ever on your show, besides, uh, I Met the Tree.

• 37:36Pablo Torre?

  Wait, so hold on. The tree that is beautifully dying, the Hitler oak, how do they make sure that it does live on? What do you do with the acorns as it's gloriously perishing?

• 37:48Speaker 06

  Well, that's exactly what I thought. I'm like, oh, so you just collect the acorns, right? And, and put them in some, uh, potting soil and bam, you got another, um, Hitler oak. But it's way more interesting and way more complicated, uh, than, than just planting an acorn.

• 38:03Speaker 16

  So if you want a genetically identical individual, what you can do is you get like a young twig essentially off of it. And I've done this process before and I feel kind of like a witch when I'm doing it. Because basically we'll take a tree that's in a pot and we'll get a twig from another tree and we cut the tree that's in the pot. And then we cut the twig off the tree and you have to like use a little knife to get it to line up exactly. And then you put them together and you just like wrap it with like a rubber band essentially, and you dip it in wax. And you try to do this in the winter when it's completely dormant. Um, and then you put the spot where you put those two together, you put that against a little heating bar and you heat it up. So it's, things is the growing season and it's ready to grow.

• 38:45Speaker 16

  And then those two merge together and they become one tree.

• 38:51Pablo Torre?

  So why don't you point out that none of that, it sounds like it should work.

• 38:54Speaker 06

  Right.

• 38:55Speaker 16

  And then when the spring comes, it'll leaf out with, you know, the roots from the other tree and the twig from the old tree. So basically what you've done is you've taken a piece of this tree, you've given it new roots and a new life. And it's basically a new individual that's only, instead of the 80 something years old that that whole tree is, that twig is only a couple of years old.

• 39:13Pablo Torre?

  That sounds crazy. That's how you reproduce a tree?

• 39:16Speaker 06

  Yeah. You, uh, you, you, you create some kind of secondary zombie tree limb.

• 39:21Pablo Torre?

  You tie it together.

• 39:23Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 39:23Pablo Torre?

  You make the tree think that it's growing season and it grows.

• 39:27Speaker 06

  I mean, they treated it, it was like a child. I got the idea that they were talking to it. They were checking in every day, waiting to see if it would produce, uh, buds or leaves.

• 39:38Pablo Torre?

  Like an actual living thing.

• 39:39Speaker 06

  They were all rooting for this Hitler oak to live.

• 39:43Pablo Torre?

  I don't know if you intended to make that pun, but I salute you nonetheless. They were rooting for it to live.

• 39:50Speaker 06

  And it does. It works. I mean, all this sorcery, you know, it works and they they've managed to replicate and propagate these Hitler Oaks. And now they've grown over years into saplings that can be transplanted into the ground. And so now they've got four new genetically identical Hitler Oaks to stand for the four gold medals and the four original oak saplings. And they plant them in different areas around Cleveland.

• 40:20Pablo Torre?

  All of this continuing to be an even greater act of defiance than the one that had been mythologized in Berlin.

• 40:29Speaker 06

  And it goes on because now in Cleveland, these Hitler Oaks, they're helping to educate people about the importance of trees, about how to combat redlining.

• 40:41Speaker 16

  And that's one of the environmental injustices that the community, forestry community, is trying to really face and address right now, to say that we need to get more trees into these areas. Because as a tree person, now I see all the benefits of trees. It helps mental health. It helps stress. It makes it cooler when it's hot days. You know, it creates space for community, for people to hang out. I'd like to think that like, you know, Jesse Owens wants to see these trees grow and survive and thrive. But then it's also an opportunity for us to bring awareness to that issue and try to engage community members with it.

• 41:18Speaker 06

  So the trees themselves and the act of regenerating them and replanting them are now fighting a whole nother fight in Cleveland.

• 41:41Pablo Torre?

  And so the obvious question near the end here, Flem, is whether anybody feels any discomfort, residual lingering discomfort, from the fact that these are

• 41:53Pablo Torre?

  Hitler Oaks, that these are gifted, again, from one of history's greatest monsters.

• 42:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, and I think that's one of the best parts of this whole story. They mean so much more to the people in that community that they don't really see them that way.

• 42:10Speaker 17

  And today, with the eyes of a new generation of African-American track stars looking on, the rebirth of Owens' old dying tree was planted in new ground next to the Rockefeller Park Lagoon.

• 42:22Speaker 18

  The new tree was propagated from the Jesse Owens Olympic Oak and planted right next to the site of the original.

• 42:30Pablo Torre?

  So Flem, what I'm finding out at the very end here is that we have been mislabeling the subject of today's episode. These are not actually the Hitler Oaks at all.

• 42:42Speaker 06

  No, they have, over time, they have become, they've changed, and they mean something totally different now. They've become the Jesse Owens Oaks.

• 42:53Speaker 05

  These are the Jesse Owens Olympic Oaks. They are nothing but that, the Jesse Owens Olympic Oaks. His story is one of resilience. There was pressure to not participate in the 1936 Olympics. There was pressure to boycott because being black in America in 1936 was also one in a community in which you were not afforded freedoms, you were not afforded full liberty. And he was denied that all the way. And so I actually think that that makes it even more powerful.

• 43:22Speaker 08

  I think it's important that we tell a well-grounded story about Jesse Owens, both about his triumphs and his challenges. He is someone who is reflective of a very important moment in African-American history. And so, to that extent, I'm really glad that people are keeping these Oaks alive and keeping the story of Jesse Owens at the forefront of our national memory.

• 43:53Speaker 06

  Hitler kind of outsmarted himself by gifting to Jesse Owens the very thing that he could use to fight racism and redlining in Cleveland. I mean, how about that for a transformation from Hitler to the Jesse Owens Oaks?

• 44:12Pablo Torre?

  Dave Fleming, thank you for reporting a story that continues to grow.

• 44:19Speaker 06

  Now you're gonna pull out the puns?

• 44:30Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 44:36Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Love the crown molding.

• 45:06Speaker 00

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet?

• 45:13Speaker 00

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 45:51Speaker 19

  State Fair food is getting smaller and pricier. We'll have room for fried cookies. Okay, you'd never overspend on food. What's your deal?

• 45:59Speaker 20

  What's his deal? He went to Metro and got $450 in value on the new Samsung Galaxy 837 5G for free and no activation fees.

• 46:07Speaker 19

  Free phone? Oh, sign me up.

• 46:10Speaker 20

  Get that more for your money feeling, only on Metro by T-Mobile.

• 46:13Speaker 17

  Bring your number and activate $40 period plan. $450 based on device discount waived activation fee. Not available if with Metro T-Mobile in the past 180 days.