Josh Bornstein

We all deal with rules and red tape, and most of the time it just about works out, but sometimes it's absurd, arbitrary, and even violent.

Our narrator in this series is Josh Bornstein, a lawyer known for fighting injustice on behalf of the underdog.

His own grandparents fled fascism in Poland, landing in Australia in 1938, [somber music] and that's where our story starts, too, in October 1938 in a quiet room in the Women's College at the University of Sydney on Gadigal land.

Camilla Wedgwood, the college principal, is writing a letter.

They're nearly as bad in this respect as the doctors, and that is saying a good deal."

This letter, along with hundreds more written to and from Camilla Wedgwood, is stored in the Quaker archives, now held at the Jewish Museum in Sydney.

[somber music] I'm Josh Bornstein.

For the last 25 years or so, I've worked as a lawyer, practicing primarily in the area of employment and industrial relations, representing Australian trade unions and employees.