The Holocaust History Podcast

Send us a textWhen the Nazis carried out their infanous and well-documented book burning on the Opernplatz in May 1933, the literal fuel for that fire came from Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science, an institution that both studied and provided treatment for LGBTQ Germans.In this episode, I talked with Brandy Schillace about Hirschfeld, the struggle for gay rights in Weimar Germany, and the Nazi assault on the gay community as well as the connections between this homophobia and antisemitism and genocide.Brandy Schillace, PhD is an independent historian and journalist.Schillace, Brandy. The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story (2025)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe story of Bulgaria and the Holocaust is often a narrative about how Bulgaria protected its Jews from the Nazis. But is this really case?  Certainly not in the case of Thrace and Macedonia. In this episode, I talked with Nadege Ragaru about the history of the complex Holocaust in Bulgaria and its attempts to come to terms with this past. Nadège Ragaru is a research professor at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po Paris. Ragaru, Nadége.  Bulgaria, the Jews, and the Holocaust: On the Origins of a Heroic Narrative (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textIn December 1941,  an SS man took a series of 12 photographs of an Einsatzgruppen killing in Latvia.  The negatives were stolen by a survivor who had copies made and retrieved them after the war.In today's episode, we explore what we can learn about the Holocaust from these photographs and, indeed, from photographs in general.  I talk with Hillary Earl and Valerie Hébert who have written in depth about these images.Hilary Earl is a professor of history at Nipissing University.Valerie Hébert is a professor of history and interdisciplinary studies at Lakehead University.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textWhen did the Holocaust start?  How soon after Hitler took power did anti-Jewish violence begin?  These are some of the important questions we explore in this episode as I talk with Hermann Beck and the surge in antisemitic violence in the wake of the Nazi rise to power in 1933. In his pathbreaking book, Hermann Beck has documented an explosion of serious violence including murders in the immediate wake of Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933.   Importantly, we also talk about what institutions could have done at this early stage (and why they failed to act.) Hermann Beck a professor of history at the University of Miami. Beck, Hermann. Before the Holocaust: Antisemitic Violence and the Reaction of German Elites and Institutions during the Nazi Takeover (2022)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textAmong the books that many people talk about but few have read, certainly Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf is one.  But it IS a difficult read.  How do we interpret this book?  How significant is it?  And what does it tell us about the Holocaust?  These are some of the questions we tackled in this episode with the editors of a new volume on the subject.In this episode, I talked with Michael S. Bryant and John J. Michalcayk about this important book and how to understand it.Michalczyk, John J, Michael S. Bryant, and Susan A. Michalzyk. Hitler's ‘Mein Kampf' and the Holocaust: A Prelude to Genocide(2022)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textMany Nazis including Josef Mengele, Adolf Eichmann, Franz Stangl, and Klaus Barbie escaped Europe and fled to South America in an attempt to evade prosecution for their crimes.  We know quite a bit about their lives and crimes during the Holocaust but much less about the network of people that supported them in their new lives in South America.I spoke with Betina Anton about her work researching the people who helped Josef Mengele and her personal connection to this case.Note: You may want to listen to Ep. 26- Josef Mengele with David Marwell for a more in-depth biography of Mengele.Betina Anton is a journalist and international news editor at Globo TV.Anton, Betina.  Hiding Mengele: How a Nazi Network Harbored the Angel of Death (2025)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textKlaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, led a terrible and fascinating life, from Nazi torturer to advisor to brutal South American dictatorships.  However, unlike many, he was eventually brought to justice for his crimes.  In this episode, I talk with Richard J. Golsan about the sensational trial of Klaus Barbie and its effect on the memory of the Holocaust in France. Richard J. Golsan is University Distinguished Professor and Director of the French Institute at Texas A&M University.Golsan, Richard J. Justice in Lyon: Klaus Barbie and France's First Trial for Crimes against Humanity (2022)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textHow can the digital humanities address and explore the Holocaust? In these days of Chat GPT, we may be rightly wary about the use of computers to analyze the past.  However, today's episode shows how an ethical approach to using computational methods can expand our understanding of the past often by showing us new questions that we hadn't considered before. In this episode, I talk with Todd Presner about his fascinating and impressive work with the “big data” of recorded Holocaust testimony. Todd Presner is Chair of UCLA's Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at UCLA. Presner, Todd. Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory (2024)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textMany of us have seen or listened to recorded Holocaust survivor testimony.  But have we thought about HOW that testimony was created?  And what role that process of eliciting testimony might play in the kinds of things survivors talk about it? In this episode, I talked with Noah Shenker about how three different archives approached gathering testimony but also about what this means for our understanding of the Holocaust and the ways that survivors remember and recount their experiences. Noah Shenker is an Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Film and Media Studies at Colgate University. Shenker, Noah. Reframing Holocaust Testimony (2015)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textAmong the flood of displaced persons that washed across Germany after WWII were a large number of perpetrators, particularly from Eastern Europe.  They mostly passed unnoticed (and unbothered) by occupation authorities to start new lives elsewhere.  A large number of these Holocaust perpetrators arrived in Australia where they not only remained unrepentant but established new fascist networks.  In this episode, I talk with Jayne Persian about these fascists in exile in Australia. Persian, Jayne. Fascists in Exile: Post-War Displaced Persons in Australia (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textWhat is it like to have a Nazi in the family?  What if that Nazi was Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz? One of the least studied areas of Holocaust history is the ways in which the families and descendants of former Nazis engage with their family history.I am very grateful to be joined on this week's podcast by Kai Hoess, grandson of Rudolf Hoess, to talk about his family history and his own journey to coming to terms with his past. As always, this podcast does not endorse any particular religion or religious doctrine. Kai Hoess is a non-denominational Christian pastor at the Bible Church of Stuttgart.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textArchitecture (and architects) played a critical role in not just the Third Reich, but also the Holocaust.  Nazi architects helped embody the Nazi worldview in their monumental work but also in the designs of concentration camps.  They were willing collaborators in the use of slave labor and, ultimately, in the construction of the apparatuses of genocide.  In this episode, I talk with architecture and Holocaust historian Paul Jaskot about all these facets of architecture in the Third Reich. Paul Jaskot is Professor of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies and co-director of the Digital Art History and Visual Culture Research Lab at Duke University. Jaskot, Paul. The Architecture of Oppression: The SS, Forced Labor and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy (1999)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textHow did Jews in Germany resist the Nazis? What were the choices that they made to stand up against the regime where its authoritarian power was greatest?  In this episode, I talk with Wolf Grüner about his research on this topic and his surprising discovery of the extent of resistance by Jewish Germans in the heart of the Nazi state. Wolf Grüner is the Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History and director of the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research at the University of Southern California. Grüner, Wolf.  Resisters: How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe Holocaust in Poland left hundreds of towns and villages that had previously had large Jewish populations empty.  However, important Jewish sites like synagogues and cemeteries remained.   Polish communities were then confronted with what do with these places.  In this fascinating conversation with Yechiel Weizman, we talk about his work in researching this and how some communities attempted to destroy these places and how some were were quite literally haunted by their Holocaust past. Yechiel Weizman is a lecturer in the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, Bar-Ilan University. Weizman, Yechiel. Unsettled Heritage: Living next to Poland's Material Jewish Traces after the Holocaust (2022)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textUltimately, the story of the Holocaust is one centered in places:  where something happened, where someone was from, where someone wanted to go.  In this episode, I talked with two scholars about the role of geography in the Holocaust but also about how we use geographical approaches and methodologies to ask (and answer new important historical questions.  Anne Kelly Knowles is the McBride Professor of History at the University of Maine. Tim Cole is a professor of social history at the University of Bristol. Knowles, Anne Kelly, Tim Cole, and Paul Jaskot. Geographies of the Holocaust (2014)Cole, Tim. Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto (2003)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textHow does one talk with a Holocaust survivor about their experiences?  What is the role of survivor testimony in understanding the Holocaust?  In this episode, I talk with psychologist, Holocaust scholar, and playwright Hank Greenspan about his lifetime of talking with survivors and what he has learned from that experience.Henry “Hank” Greenspan is an emeritus psychologist, oral historian and playwright at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who has been interviewing, writing about, and teaching about Holocaust survivors since the 1970s. Greenspan, Henry. On Listening to Holocaust Survivors: Beyond Testimony (2010)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe Nazis first targeted mentally and physically disabled Germans for mass killing, before they targeted Jews.  However, discrimination and ableist thought predated the Nazis and followed them into the postwar era.In this episode, I talk with Dagmar Herzog about both the Nazi “euthanasia” campaign, but also the larger context of discrimination against disabled people.  We also talk about those who tried to care for these vulnerable people as well as those who lobbied for their recognition as Nazi victims and for their rights in general in the postwar era. Dagmar Herzog is a Distinguished Professor of History and the Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Herzog, Dagmar. The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany's Twentieth Century (2024)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textIn this episode, I talked with Jacob Flaws about the spaces of Treblinka.  His work analyses this extermination camp from a spatial perspective, focusing on the physical and ideological boundaries of the camp.  His work shows that the fences of the camp did not contain the truth of its existence and he details the ways in which the local population from the surrounding area interacted with the Nazi killing process and its victims.Jacob Flaws is an assistant professor of history at Kean University.Flaws, Jacob. Spaces of Treblinka: Retracing a Death Camp (2024)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textPhilosopher Theodore W. Adorno famously said that “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”  Here he gives an example of the way that many thinkers and philosophers struggled with the post-Holocaust world.  In this episode, I talked with philosopher and Holocaust scholar John K. Roth about the ways that philosophy approaches the Holocaust and how Nazi genocide challenges our understanding of the world.  John K. Roth is Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Claremont McKenna College.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textAt least 2 million Jews were murdered by mass shooting in the Soviet Union.  The perpetrators responsible for most of these killings were the men of the Einsatzgruppen.  In this week's episode, I talk with Jürgen Mathäus about the history of these units, their evolution from 1938 on, and the role they played in the Holocaust. Jürgen Mathäus is the director of the Applied Research Program at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The views expressed in this segment are those of the speaker; they do not necessarily represent the opinions of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.Matthäus, Jürgen, Jochen Böhler, and Klaus-Michael Mallmann. War, Pacification, and Mass Murder, 1939: The Einsatzgruppen in Poland (2014)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textWhat was the relationship between Christianity?  Could one be both a Nazi and a Christian?  What was the relationship between religious antisemitism and other forms of Jew hatred?  On today's episode, I talked with Richard Steigmann-Gall about these difficult but important questions.   Richard Steigmann-Gall is an associate professor of history at Kent State University.Steigmann-Gall, Richard. The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945(2009)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textWhat is it like to visit a Nazi extermination camp or even a Holocaust site in general?  Last year, I was fortunate enough to travel to Poland with three friends to a number of camps and Holocaust-related sites and museums.  I thought I would do something different in this episode and invite them to talk about their experiences.Stuart Bertie is an architect and photographer with strong family connections to WW2. He has photographed for the National WW2 Museum, and is currently working on the Band of Brothers Currahee to Normandy documentary project.Mary Brazier is a Mental Health Social Worker in the NHS with an MA in military history and a special interest in psychiatry in the Second World War.Lesley Moore is an accountant that is interested in the history of the Holocaust during WW2, in particular Operation Reinhard. She has recently starting guiding Holocaust tours in Krakow, PolandFollow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe wife of Nazi camp commandant Karl Koch, Ilse, became a lasting symbol of the evil and depravity of the Nazi state.  She was accused of a variety of crimes and underwent three trials, including one by the Nazis themselves.  However, there is more to the story.In this episode, I talk with Tomaz Jardim about the real Ilse Koch and he unpacks the three trials as well as how the Ilse Koch ascended as the mythic epitome of Nazi evil.Tomaz Jardim is a professor of history at Toronto Metropolitan University.Jardim, Tomaz. Ilse Koch on Trial: Making the “Bitch of Buchenwald” (2024) Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textHistorian Timothy Snyder wrote that, between 1941 and 1944, Belarus was the deadliest place on earth.  And he was right.  The population there, both Jewish and non-Jewish suffered under the full weight of the Nazi genocidal project from the Holocaust by Bullets to the Hunger Plan.In this episode, I talked with Franziska Exeler about the Holocaust in Belarus as well as its aftermath in postwar justice and its place in postwar memory. Franziska Exeler is an assistant professor at the Free University Berlin and a research fellow at the Centre for History and Economics at the University of Cambridge.Exeler, Franziska. Ghosts of War: Nazi Occupation and its Aftermath in Soviet Belarus (2022)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe Bełżec extermination camp was the first of the so-called Operation Reinhard camps to open.  In some ways, it provided the model for the other Reinhard camps of Sobibor and Treblinka.  In this episode, Chris Webb provides a detailed history of the camp and a detailed discussion of the important role that Bełżec played in the Final Solution. Chris Webb is an independent researcher who has written multiple books on the Operation Reinhard camps.  He is also the creator of three important web resources on the Holocaust: the Holocaust Historical Society, ARC: The Aktion Reinhard Camps, and HEART: Holocaust Education and Research Team.  Webb, Chris. The Belzec Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (2016)Webb, Chris. The Sobibor Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (2017)Webb, Chris. The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (2014)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textIn 1985, the nine-hour film Shoah by Claude Lanzmann hit theaters.  This powerful production featured survivor testimony as well as secretly filmed interviews with Nazi perpetrators.  It's length and the way it was shot challenges our understanding of what a Holocaust film is.  Is it a documentary film or something else? How has it impacted both our understanding of the event as well as the ways in which others have made films and movies about the Holocaust?  In this discussion with Dominic Williams, we dive into all these questions and more! Dominic Williams is an assistant professor of history at Northumbria University in Newcastle, UK. Williams, Dominic and Nicholas Chare. The Auschwitz Sonderkommando: Testimonies, Histories, Representations (2019)Williams, Dominic and Nicholas Chare. Matters of Testimony: Interpreting the Scrolls of Auschwitz (2016)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textWhen the Einsatzgruppen began reporting that they were murdering Jews, the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park intercepted and decoded the messages.  Throughout the Holocaust, these men and women deciphered the reports of the SS and documented the crimes of the Nazi state.On this episode, I talk with journalist and researcher Christian Jennings about the Holocaust Code and what we can learn about the Holocaust from decoded Nazi transmissions. Christian Jennings is a British author and foreign correspondent, and the author of ten non-fiction books of modern history and current affairs. THis latest book is The Holocaust Codes: Decrypting the Final Solution. He has lectured for Bletchley Park on German codebreaking, and from 1994-2012 he spent fifteen years reporting for newspapers and TV on international current affairs and complex war crimes investigations, including genocide and its aftermath, across twenty-three countries in the Western Balkans and Africa. Jennings, Christian. The Holocaust Codes: The Untold Story of Decrypting the Final Solution (2024)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe first victims were not Jews per se, but Germans.  That is to say, that the Nazis first murdered mentally and physically handicapped Germans that they considered to be unworthy of living.  In so doing, they drew on the long history of the eugenics movement. In this episode, I talked with Marius Turda about the role eugenics played in the Nazi state, its connections to the larger global eugenics movement, and the echoes of this history today.  Marius Turda is a professor and historian of eugenics and the Holocaust as well as the director of the Centre for Medical Humanities at Oxford Brookes University. Turda, Marius. Modernism and Eugenics (2010)Turda, Marius. Eugenics and Nation in Early 20th Century Hungary (2014)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe topic of resistance during the Holocaust is always a controversial one. What is resistance?  What did it take to stand up to the Nazis when the vast majority of Germans did not.In this episode, I talk with historian Mark Roseman about a remarkable group of socialists in Nazi Germany who made the difficult choice to stand up in ways both big and small.  We also talk about nature of resistance and what makes a resister or rescuer. Roseman, Mark. Lives Reclaimed: A Story of Rescue and Resistance in Nazi Germany (2020)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textIn addition  to the massive loss of life, the twelve years of Nazi rule in Europe created one of the largest demographic disasters in human history with millions of people scattered across the continent.  For Holocaust survivors, one of the most pressing tasks after liberation was attempting to discover the fates of relatives and friends.  A variety of international organizations worked to help these people,  This also resulted in one of the most interesting archives: the archives of the International Tracing Service. In this episode, I talk with Dan Stone about the search for the missing, the challenges of documenting the Holocaust, the secretive political history of the search for survivors. Stone, Dan.  Fate Unknown: Tracing the Missing after World War II and the Holocaust (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe behavior of the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII is one of the most hotly debated controversies in the history of the Holocaust.  And for a long time much of the evidence about that has been locked away in the Vatican Archives.  Now, historians are finally able to access these documents. In this episode, I talk with one of those who has access to those Vatican archives, David Kertzer, about the response of the Catholic Church to the rise of the Nazis and to the Holocaust.    Kertzer, David, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler (2022)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textDr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death, has achieved an almost mythical status as a supervillain.  Yet this stereotype obscures the history of a man who was, in many ways, a product of both pre-war racial pseudoscience and the Nazi state.I am joined in this episode by David Marwell an historian who remarkably also worked with the US government to track down Dr. Mengele after the war.  We talk about Mengele's origins, what made him who he was, and the hunt for him after the end of World War II.Marwell, David. Mengele: Unmasking the "Angel of Death" (2021)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textWas the Holocaust a unique event or did it have its roots in earlier historical events?  How do we put earlier colonial genocides in context and conversation with the Holocaust?  On this episode, we talk about the connections between the German genocide of the Herero and Nama in Namibia and its occupation of eastern Europe. On this episode I talked with Jürgen Zimmerer about this topic.  We also looked at the role that the colonial genocides play in German popular memory as well as the fierce current debate over German official apologies and reparations. Jürgen Zimmerer is a Professor of History at the University of Hamburg. Zimmerer, Jürgen. From Windhoek to Auschwitz?: Reflections on the colonial-Nationalsocialist nexus (2023) Zimmerer, Jürgen. German Rule, African Subjects: State Aspirations and the Reality of Power in Colonial Namibia (2022)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a text The story of Countess Janina (Mehlberg) Suchodolska is something that would be rejected by Hollywood as too far-fetched, but it is a true story.  Janina was a Jewish Pole hiding in plain sight as a Polish noblewoman who then went on to rescue prisoners from one of the deadliest concentration camps.In this episode, I talk with historians Joanna Sliwa and Barry White about their incredible new book about Janina Mehlberg.  We talk about her incredible story, but also what it means for our understanding of rescue and Polish-Jewish relations.Joanna Sliwa is an historian and Administrator of the Saul Kagan Fellowship for Advanced Shoah Studies and of the University Partnership Program in Holocaust Studies at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.Elizabeth White is an historian who has worked as an historian in the US State Department's Office of Special Investigations tracking down Nazi war criminals and also at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Sliwa, Joann and Elizabeth White. The Counterfeit Countes: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust(2024)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a Text Message.The second largest Nazi victim group after the Jews was Soviet POWs.  The experience of these people has been documented in part by the latest volume of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos.In this week's episode, I talked with Dallas Michelbacher, one of the researchers on this project and a scholar of the Nazi genocide of Soviet POWs. Dallas Michelbacher is an applied researcher at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a Text Message.How did Holocaust perpetrators feel about what they did and how were they able to keep doing it?  The question of perpetrator motivation has been one that scholars of the Holocaust have been interested in from the beginning.But what about the phenomenon of perpetrators who seem to have been disgusted by what they were engaged in?  What does this signify? Is it some deep moral objection or something else.In this episode, I talked with Ditte Marie Munch-Jurisic about her truly thought-provoking work on interpretating these expressions of disgust. Ditte Marie Munch-Jurisic is a philosopher and teaching associate professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a Text Message.                  Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest (2023) is a haunting film focused on the domestic life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family.  The family lived in a villa directly next to the Auschwitz I camp.                    In this podcast, I talk with film scholar and screenwriter Barry Langford about the history of Holocaust film as well as The Zone of Interest.  We cover a lot of ground from technical choices to the nature of the so-called “banality of evil.”                  The Zone of Interest is available for free on Amazon Prime UK and for purchase on Amazon US.Barry Langford is a professor of film studies at Royal Holloway University.  He is also an award-winning professional screenwriter. Langford, Barry and R. Eaglestone (eds). Teaching Holocaust Literature and Film (2007)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a Text Message.The story of Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust is an incredibly complex and difficult one.  On the one hand, Poles and Jews both suffered horribly under the Nazis.  On the other, however, the general climate in Poland was inhospitable to Jews and many Poles took advantage of the Nazi occupation to victimize their Jewish neighbors for a variety of reasons.In this episode, I talked with Jan Grabowski about the history of Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust.  We talked about the role of the Blue Police in hunting down and killing the Jews and we also talked about the polarizing memory battles and weaponization of this history in Poland today. Jan Grabowski is a professor of history at the University of Ottawa.  He is a renowned scholar of the Holocaust and author of several important books on the topic.  Grabowski, Jan. On Duty - The Polish Blue & Criminal Police in the Holocaust (2024)Grabowski, Jan. Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland (2022)Grabowski, Jan. Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland(2013)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 Jews, Roma, and ethnic Serbs were murdered in the Jasenovac concentration camp in what is now Croatian.  This camp was run by Croatians without Nazi involvement.  Yet few outside of the Balkans have heard of it.In this week's episode, I talk with Stipe Odak about the incredibly complex history of the camp as well as the Holocaust in region.  We also delve into the difficult memory politics of the camp and its use during the 1990s Balkan genocides.Stipe Odak is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Political Science at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and, as of September 2024, an assistant professor in the field of applied ethics at the same university. He received his PhD in Political and Social Sciences from UC Louvain (Belgium) and a doctorate in Theology from KU Leuven (Belgium).Odak, Stipe and Andriana Kuznar, Danijeila Lucic, eds. Jasenovac Concentration Camp: An Unfinished Past (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

The Treblinka extermination center was responsible for the murder of approximately 925,000 Jews during the Holocaust.  It was the deadliest killing site after Auschwitz.  Yet few people know that it was also the scene of a successful uprising and mass escape by the prisoners there. In this conversation with Chad Gibbs, we talked about the history of the camp as well as the work he has done in recreating the vital social networks among prisoners that enabled the prisoner revolt. Chad Gibbs is an Assistant Professor in Jewish Studies and the Director of Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies at the College of Charleston.  His forthcoming book deals with the history of the prisoner uprising at Treblinka.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

From the earliest days of the Third Reich through the end of the war, there were organized efforts to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis.  Perhaps as many as 10,000 were rescued in this way, but without their parents.  They ended up in a variety of countries and had diverse set of experiences.   In addition, the story of the Kindertransport has worked its way into the cultural memory of the Holocaust, particularly in the United Kingdom.  In this episode, I spoke with Amy Williams about the incredibly complex history of these operations and the ways in which they have been commemorated. Dr. Amy Willams is currently a fellow at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School, New York. For the past two years she was the module leader of the undergraduate module “Holocaust and Genocide” at Nottingham Trent University. Her new co-authored book with Prof. Bill Niven “Memory of the Kindertransport in National and Transnational Memories: Exhibitions, Memorials, and Commemorations” has recently been published by Camden House. She is working on her next co-authored book with Bill for Yale University Press on the transnational history of the Kindertransport, due to be published in 2026. Her third book for Mitteldeutscher Verlag entitled “Kindertransport: Eine Spurensuche” or “In Search of the Kindertransport” is a testimony book based on 150 interviews. Williams, Amy and William Niven. National and Transnational Memories of the Kindertransport: Exhibitions, Memorials, and Commemorations (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

General Dwight Eisenhower's visit to the Ohrdruf concentration camp in April 1945 fundamentally changed his outlook on the war and on his enemy, the Nazis.  It also changed the way he carried out his duties later as US Military Governor in charge of both caring for former concentration prisoners as well as dealing with former Nazis, and, later, as President of the United States.In this conversation with Jason Lantzer, we talk about all of this and more.You can see some wartime footage of Eisnehower's visit to Ohrdruf here courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Jason Lantzer is an historian and also Assistant Director of the Honors Program at Butler University. Lantzer, Jason. Dwight Eisenhower and the Holocaust: A History (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

We talk a lot about learning from the Holocaust and lessons from the Holocaust, but we don't talk nearly enough about HOW to TEACH the Holocaust.  Understanding how to present this complex and often difficult material to students at a variety of different grade levels (as well as to the public at heritage sites) is a critical task.In this episode, Dr. Irene Ann Resenly talks about the pedagogy of teaching about the Holocaust, challenges of working with this material in the classroom, and the ways in which heritage sites engage with visitors. Irene Ann Resenly has worked as a Holocaust educator and scholar for nearly two decades in diverse settings and is currently a middle school social studies teacher in suburban Wisconsin. Resenly, I. A. (2022). Site Educators in Germany's Perceptions of Practice: The Sense-Maker and the Storyteller. In Tour Guides at Memorial Sites and Holocaust Museums: Empirical Studies in Europe, Israel, North America and South Africa. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 33-45. Schweber, S., & Resenly, I. A. (2018). Curricular Imprints or the Presence of Curricular Pasts: A Study of One Third Grader's Holocaust Education 12 Years Later. Holocaust Education in Primary Schools in the Twenty-First Century: Current Practices, Potentials and Ways Forward. pp. 3-18.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Some historians have argued that the experience of Romani people during the Holocaust most closely approximated that of the Jews in terms of policy and execution.  Of course, there were also important differences.  But, Jews and Romani also went through the Holocaust together.  In this, really fascinating discussion, I talked with Ari Joskowicz about the Nazi genocide of Romani, their interactions with Jews, and the difficult challenge of preserving these histories. Ari Joskowciz is an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University. Joskowicz, Ari.  Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

What motivated Nazi perpetrators?  How do we explain the apparent ease with which so many Germans carried out acts of extreme violence?  These are some of the most enduring questions raised by the Holocaust. And they are questions that scholars still grapple with today.  In this episode, I talked with Prof. Ed Westermann about these questions including issues such as alcohol abuse, sexual violence, and the role of toxic masculinity.  Warning: this does contain some disturbing content. Ed Westermann a Regents Professor of History at Texas A&M University- San Antonio.Westermann, Edward. Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany (2021) Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

This episode covers a lot of ground with my guests from the Auschwitz Jewish Center, Tomek Kuncewicz and Maciek Zabierowski.  We talk about the history of the Jewish community in Oświęcim, Poland as well as the challenges of educating the Polish non-Jewish community about the Holocaust.  We close with a discussion of the ways in which the Holocaust is used in Polish politics today. To learn more about the valuable work of the Center, click here!  Tomek Kuncewicz is the director of the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim, Poland. Maciek Zabierowski is head of the education department at Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim, Poland.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

The Nazis pursued a variety of strategies in their attempts to murder all the Jews of Europe.  One of these was starvation, particularly within ghettos where they could control the flow of food to captive populations.In this episode, I talk with Professor Helene Sinnreich about the experience of hunger in the Warsaw, Łodz, and Krakow ghettos.  She tells us about the ways in which the Nazis used hunger as a weapon, the effects it had on ghetto populations, and the diverse ways in which different Jewish communities confronted this assault.Helene J. Sinnreich is a professor and head of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Tennesse-Knoxville.Sinnreich, Helene J. The Atrocity of Hunger: Starvation in the Warsaw, Lodz and Krakow Ghettos during World War II (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

It's been over 20 years since the HBO television series Band of Brothers appeared, but it continues to shape the popular understanding and conception of World War II.  The series is full of powerful episodes but one that viewers consistently single out as particularly moving is Episode 9: Why We Fight.  In this episode, the soldier of Easy Company stumble across a Nazi concentration camp.Ever since I started this podcast, I have wanted to talk with those involved about the choices made in this episode and what it was like to be involved.  I am incredibly grateful to John Orloff who wrote the episode and Ross McCall the actor who played Jewish soldier Joe Liebgott for taking the time to chat with me about this.For those interested in the camp depicted in the film was Kaufering IV, a subcamp of Dachau.  You can find a short film from the US National WWII Museum on the liberation of Kaufering here.  If you would like to see actual wartime photographs of the camp at liberation, you can find them here from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. John Orloff is a writer and producer.  He wrote two episodes of the Band Of Brothers series.  More recently, he is the creator, writer, and co-executive producer for Masters of the Air.Ross McCall is an actor. Beyond playing CPL Joseph Liebgott in the Band of Brothers series, Ross has appeared in numerous feature films and television series.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

The Nazi state was built on persecution and multiple groups in addition to Jews were victimized and killed during the Holocaust.  Today's podcast looks not only at Nazi persecution of gay and transgender people along with Nazi homophobic thought, but also explores the history of LGTBQ communities in Germany before the war.We also look at the challenges to doing this historical work as well as the recent assaults on Holocaust history by those aiming to use that past to justify current intolerance.Laurie Marhoefer is a history professor at the University of Washington.Marhoefer, Laurie. Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis (2015)Marhoefer, Laurie. Racism and the Making of Gay Rights: A Sexologist, His Student, and the Empire of Queer Love (2022)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

            The story of the Topf brothers is one of the most chilling examples of corporate complicity in the Holocaust.  Topf and Sons was the company who designed, built, and installed the ovens used to burn corpses in the concentration camps.  Far being disinterested bureaucrats, the company's employees were actively involved in problem-solving and helping the Nazis to destroy the bodies of their victims.            This really enlightening conversation with author Karen Bartlett lays bare the ways in which Topf engineers knowingly enabled Nazi mass murder.  It exp[lores the complexities of perpetrator choices as well as the ways in which their decendants approach the crimes of their family members.              You can learn more about Topf & Sons as well at the Topf & Sons Memorial and Museum in Erfurt, Germany.Karen Bartlett is a writer and journalist and the author of several books on the Holocaust. Her book on Topf & Sons is:Bartlett, Karen.  Architects of Death: The Family Who Engineered the Holocaust (2018) Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

            Did you know that a Holocaust survivor who served in the US Army in the Korean War won the Congressional Medal Of Honor?  Did you know that there were thousands of Holocaust survivors who fought the Nazis during WWII or served in the US military afterward?            Today's discussion with Mike Rugel looks at the fascinating stories of some of these individuals but also explores issues such as the liberation of concentration camps by Jewish soldiers and the various ways in which Jews fought the Nazis as well as how their experiences in the Holocaust affected their own service.Mike Rugel is the Director of Programs and Content for the National Museum of American Jewish Military History in Washington, DC. Cohen, Daniel. Single Handed: The Inspiring True Story of Tibor "Teddy" Rubin (2016)Task and Purpose Article on Ted RubinFollow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.comThe Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here