History of the Jewish people in Germany
POPULARITY
Tova Friedman was just six years old when she walked out of Auschwitz. Now, 80 years later, Tova is devoted to speaking about her experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust and being vocal about the threat of antisemitism. She knows how easily a society can transition from burning books to burning people, and she is determined to ensure that never happens again. Tova speaks to audiences worldwide–in person and on the social media platform TikTok, where she has amassed over half a million followers. Listen to Tova's harrowing, miraculous testimony of survival, as part of a live recording at the Weizmann National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, in partnership with AJC Philadelphia/Southern New Jersey. Lisa Marlowe, director of the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center (HAMEC), joined us to discuss the museum's mission to bring Holocaust survivors to schools, the importance of teaching history through eyewitness accounts, and the significance of preserving stories of righteous individuals like her Danish great-grandmother, who saved thousands of Jews during WWII. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Photo credit: Christopher Brown Resources: -About Tova Friedman and TovaTok -Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center (HAMEC) -AJC Philadelphia/Southern New Jersey Listen – AJC Podcasts: -The Forgotten Exodus: Untold stories of Jews who left or were driven from Arab nations and Iran -People of the Pod Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Transcript of Interview with Tova Friedman and Lise Marlowe: Manya Brachear Pashman: Yom HaShoah, Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, begins on the evening of April 23. To mark this remembrance, our broadcast this week features our recent live event at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. There I had a conversation with Lise Marlowe, of the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center in suburban Philadelphia and author and Holocaust survivor Tova Friedman. __ Thank you to all of you for being here today to participate in a live recording of People of the Pod, American Jewish Committee's weekly podcast about global affairs through a Jewish lens. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Down here on this end is Lise Marlowe, our partner and organizer of this wonderful event. She is the program and Outreach Director of the Holocaust awareness Museum and Education Center, otherwise known as HAMC in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, which is just outside here in Philadelphia. She is also a long time teacher who has come up with some quite innovative ways to teach Holocaust history to middle school students. But before we begin and get to all of that, I do want to turn to Lisa for a few minutes. If you could just tell us a little bit about HAMC. What is it? Because we are in a different museum venue now. Lise Marlowe: Thank you Manya, and thank you everyone for being here today. So HAMC is America's first Holocaust Museum, which started in 1961 by Holocaust survivor named Jacob Riz, who lost 83 family members to the Nazis. Our Museum's mission is to bring Holocaust survivors to schools and organizations. We believe it's important to give students the opportunity to learn history through an eyewitness. When we host a school program, we tell students that they are the last generation to meet a survivor, and once they hear a survivor's story, it becomes their story to tell. It also becomes their responsibility to speak up and stand up to the Holocaust deniers of the world and to say, I know you're lying because I met a survivor. It's not easy for our survivors to tell their story, but they want to honor the family they lost. And to make sure students know what happened so history hopefully doesn't repeat itself. Hearing about the rise of antisemitism, seeing hate towards other groups, can bring trauma to our survivors, but our survivors teach students that there are things we can do to stand up to hate. We can remember that words matter, kindness matters, that we can support and help each other when bad things happen. The Holocaust did not begin with concentration camps. It began with words. Our museum brings hundreds of programs all over the world, so please reach out to us at HAMC.org. Because we believe education is stronger than hate. We find that students are inspired by the messages our survivors tell them, which is to not hate others. Even though they lost everything. Their families, their property, their identity, their childhood, they teach students that hate can only destroy yourself. Manya Brachear Pashman: Thank you so much, Lise. I met some of Lise's former students who are here in the audience today. You have some really remarkable ways of teaching Holocaust history so that it sticks. I would like to get into that a little bit later. And you also have your own family story to share, and we'll learn more about that later, as she is one of our two guests on today's podcast. You see, there are three pieces to our podcast today, including the traditional format of a conversation with our guests, which will come later, and then your opportunity to ask questions. But to really comprehend what we discuss, you must first hear the powerful story that our guest of honor, the woman next to me, Tova Friedman, one of the youngest people to emerge from Auschwitz, the Nazi's concentration camp and extermination camp in occupied Poland. You must hear her story first. Tova has worked tirelessly to share her story in every format possible, to reach the widest audience. In addition to telling her story in person, at venues such as this, she worked with a journalist to produce an accurate and comprehensive memoir, and next month, a young adult version of that memoir will be released. She's worked with her grandson, Aaron, a student at Washington University, to share portions of her story on Tiktok on a channel called TovaTok, that has about 522,000 followers, and she is here today to reach our podcast listeners. And you. After her presentation, Tova will have a seat once again, and we'll continue the conversation. But right now, it is my honor to turn the mic over to Tova Friedman:. Tova Friedman: Thank you. I have no notes and I can't sit because I'm a walker. You know, I think better when I walk. I think better on my feet. Let me tell you, a few months ago, I was in Poland. I was invited as a speaker to the 80th commemoration of Auschwitz liberation. Five years ago, I was there also–75th. And there were 120 Holocaust survivors there with their families and their friends from Auschwitz. This time there were 17 [survivors], and we'll have no more commemoration. We're done. People, the lucky people, are dying from old age. You know, they're, or they're Florida, or they're gone, okay, they're not available. So what's scary is that many young people will not meet a survivor, and they will be told in colleges and high schools, probably it never happened. It's an exaggeration. You know, the Jews. They want everybody to be sorry for them. That will happen. And that's been happening here and there to my grandchildren. Right now, I've got eight grandchildren, but two are in colleges, and one is in Cornell. And I got the saddest phone call on Earth. To me it's sad. He got a beautiful Jewish star when we went to Israel. He called me to ask me if he should wear it inside, hidden, or if he should wear it outside. That's so symbolic. And I said to him, do you want to be a visible Jew, or do you want to be a hidden Jew? Do what you want. I will not criticize you. I know that life is changed from when I went to college. America is different, and I'm just so upset and unhappy that you, at age 18-19, have to go through that. One of my grandkids had to leave the dormitory because of the absolute terrible antisemitism. She is in McGill in Canada, and she has to live by herself in an apartment because even her Jewish friends stopped talking to her. So what kind of a world are we living in? Extraordinarily scary, as far as I'm concerned. That's why I talk. You can hear my voice. I talk as much as I can for a number of reasons. First, I talk in order for those people who were murdered, million and a half children, some of the faces I still remember, and a total 6 million Jews, they cannot be forgotten. They cannot be forgotten. This is such a wonderful place here that I hear you have classes and you have survivors talking to kids. You take them to schools. I think it's fabulous, but you got to do it fast, because there's just not many of us going to be here for a long time. So one thing is memory. The other reason I speak is a warning. I really feel that this world is again turning against us. We have been scapegoats all through history. Books have been written. Why? Why this? Why that? Why this? Why that? I can't figure out why. They're jealous, we feel with the chosen people. Oh, my God, it goes on and on. But why us? It started 2000 years ago. So I'm here to remember, so that all those people didn't just die and became ashes. But we're living in a world where we have to be aware. We have to be aware. You heard statistics that were scary. You know, I didn't even know some of the statistics. That Jews are stopping to use their Jewish last name when they make reservations somewhere? In America.? You know, I remember when I walked out from Auschwitz with my mother. My mother survived, and I'll take you back and just give me a certain amount of time. What happened? She said to me, remember I was exactly six and a half years old. And I do, I remember. And one of the reasons I remember is because my mother was a big talker. Talker just like I am. I inherited it from her. She would tell me everything. We were in all kinds of conditions. And I'd say, Mom, what is that? She says, Yeah, that's the smoke, people are being burned. She didn't say, you know, Oh, it's nothing. Don't worry about it. No, no, no, no. She talked and she talked as long as I was with her, until we were separated. That's why my memory is so sharp, and I always tell the younger generation: stop texting and start talking. Texting, you won't remember anything. It doesn't go into your brain. When somebody talks to you, you will never forget. When your mom or dad says things to you, you will remember them. If they text it to you, it lasts a few minutes and it's gone. So that's why I remember so much. My mother lost 150 people. She was the only survivor of Auschwitz. The only survivor, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, all gone, and she died very young. She died at 45. Her war never ended. Her Auschwitz, she brought with her to America because she just couldn't get over it. My father lost about all his brothers and sisters except two, and he was able to handle life a little bit better, but she wasn't. In my town, there were hundreds of Jewish children at the end of the war. There were five left. Five. I'm the youngest. That's why I'm still here talking. Two have died, and one is in her 90s, and she doesn't talk much anymore. So I feel like I'm representing an entire town that's gone, just gone. A town that had synagogues and they had football and they had a very vibrant town. Where my mother was a young woman. She was studying. My father was an actor, a singer, and a tailor, so he should have some money, but they were all functioning. It's all gone. When I went to visit, because I took my grandchildren so they can see, there was no sign the Jews even were there. It's like we disappeared. My memory of the war starts when I was four, not so much before. My parents lived in a very modern town. And because they left the shtetl, my mother wasn't interested in all the religious and the sheitles, and you know, the wigs people used to wear, which, by the way, my daughter now is wearing a wig, which is sort of strange, right? And they went to live a modern life. As soon as Kristallnacht came, he knew right away that this is not a place for him. And what do you do when you're scared? You go home, you go to your parents. So my mother and father, I was one year old, went back to their parents' home. What did they find there? That they were already in a ghetto. Now, I remember the ghetto at the age of four, there were lots and lots of people in a tiny apartment, no running water, no bathrooms, no food, no room. So I was under the table. All my memories were under the table. And I knew things that were going on. How did I know? Because I heard it. You know, a kid at four, four and a half, people make mistakes. The children don't know. Children know everything. They may not be able to verbalize it, but they know. And I knew what was the issue. I knew that they killed children and that I have to be under the table. I knew that. I knew that my grandparents are going to die soon. I heard it. I heard my father talking. I heard my mother talking. I heard the other people talking in the apartment in Yiddish. I still remember the words, oh, they name it. They're taking the elderly. They're taking this. Well, one day they came in, they took my grandmother, and they shot her, right outside our window, you know, took her outside. You know what's amazing when I think about this? Because I've tried to get some perspective. I've always tried to figure out, how did that happen? Why? How is it possible? Hitler was brilliant, and if he wasn't brilliant, he had brilliant people helping him. Idiots could not have done what he did. They were educated people. He had therapists. He had a nutritionist. And you know what they said, break up the family, and you will break up people. People die when their family is killed, they die sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally. Listen, I'm a grandmother. I have eight grandchildren. I know what it means to be a grandmother in my role, and I'm sure many of you feel the same way. So they took away the elderly. One day, my father comes in, and he says to my mother, I just put them on the truck. I know what he meant. I was exactly four and a half because I was standing by a table. I could tell my size. The table went up to my chin, and I knew that there were because the day before these people in their 20s and 30s, they were the strong guys. They dug graves for their own parents. We, the Jews, dug graves for our children and our parents. You know when the Nuremberg Trials came, some of the guys said, we didn't do anything. We never killed any…you know why? Because they used us to kill our own people. So that time, my father told my mother what was going on. He was sitting, his tears were coming down. And I could picture it, because, by the way, whatever I tell you, multiply by hundreds. This was a template, you know, like you have a template on a computer, you just fill in the name and everything is the same. You can fill in all kinds. You apply for a job. There is a special way. That's what happened. The Germans when they came to a town, they didn't have to think what happened. They had the piece of paper, kill the elderly, kill the children, as soon as possible. So I knew. I knew exactly what was going on. I knew that my grandparents were gone, my father's parents, my mother's mother was killed. Her my grandpa died before the war from some disease. He was very lucky. So here we are. One day. I had this uncle, James. He was a German Jew. He spoke a perfect German. So he thought, look at our minds. He thought, he speaks German. He's going to volunteer. He didn't have working papers, and he was scared to die. His wife, my aunt, she had working papers. So he went to the Gestapo, and he said, I'll be your translator. I speak a perfect German. I was born in German. And they shot him on the spot. So I remember he used to come and visit us. I sat on his lap one day. My father said, you won't go to see Uncle James anymore. He's not coming back. I didn't say anything. I know he was dead. I didn't know how he was dead. So the reason I'm telling you all the different things is because this happened in every other ghetto. We were living 16,000 Jews in 250 apartments, and we couldn't go in, and we couldn't get out, except certain people who had privileges. They had working papers, they had special papers. They could go out. That's how the smuggling started. Also, certain people could go out, bring some food, because we were starving. We were starving to such a point. You know why? Because the nutritionist, the PhD, the best nutritionist in Germany, told Hitler how much to feed us in order to die. You want them to die in two months? Give them that much bread. You want them to die in two weeks? Give them that. My town, which was called Tomaszow Mazowiecki, has no Jews anymore. I just wanted to mention the name because my family was there for 200 years, because the Poles in the beginning were very good to the Jews. They wanted the Jews because we were good business people. Every time the Jews were there, the place thrived. There were close to 100 tailor shops in town, all Jewish. So how could you go wrong? They brought business from everywhere. But now, of course, there isn't anybody. And slowly, all those people were sent to Treblinka. There were left about 50-60, people, my parents, I among them. There were very few kids left. And we were the cleanup squad. Not only did my father had to dig the graves, I don't think my mother did. My father, dig the graves, but afterwards you have to clean up. You can't leave a town so dirty because they wanted to leave no witnesses. Hitler had an order all the way from Berlin, no witnesses. That's another reason he killed the children. Kids can grow up and be a witness like me, and that was very dangerous for him. Because, you know, it's interesting from the psychological point of view, no matter what atrocities he and his people did, in the back of their mind, they were afraid of the consequences. They were afraid of consequences. That's why you leave no witnesses. But at that time, my father buried people and he said Kaddish. I didn't know what Kaddish was. I didn't know what being Jewish was. I don't remember any Jewish holidays. I knew that being Jewish means death, but I wasn't sure what that meant, Juden. What is this Juden business? But look at four and a half. I wasn't going to think about it. Anyhow, they moved the camp. We cleaned it up. We came to the next camp, and the next camp was the labor camp. Only work. We worked for more, not me, my parents did, and I want to tell you something about that. Slowly they did the same exact thing they did in every other camp. People were taken away. The moment you were sick, the moment you were tired, straight into some camp. One day, I heard, I heard– my mother told me, I didn't hear anything. She said they're taking the children, whoever, whatever, there were very few children left, maybe 20-30–we've got to hide you. And she hid me in like a crawl space, like they had these tiles or something. I don't know it was tile, something. And she put me in there, and she followed me, just the two of us, my father didn't get in there. And she put me on her lap, I remember. And she put her hands on my mouth. I shouldn't scream. I remember it was so tight that for weeks I had blue marks right here. And from the little window, I see where all my friends that I was playing with outside, because my parents were gone a whole day, I was outside with the other kids, put on trucks, but I knew where they were going. They were going to the place where the big graves were dug for them. So anyhow, when my mother said, we have to hide, we were there for maybe an hour or two. After it was all done, the kids were gone. We went up downstairs in a little room. She said, from now on, you can no longer be on the street. Okay, so I couldn't go out. I stayed in the dark room for a few weeks. It's another story, but one day I remember, and she came every day from work, she gave me food, and I slept with my parents. Because they were in the room with me. One day, she said, Oh, you don't have to go to the room anymore. I was delighted. I said, I don't have to? No, you can go outside. I haven't been outside for weeks, and I saw she was sort of packing, moving things. We had so few things. I said, What are you doing? She says, We're packing. We're going to Auschwitz. Again, they had, you know, cleaned up the ghetto. The place was called Starachowice. It was a Polish place. Had a town next to it even, and people who lived around, the non Jews, knew what was going on. They all knew, because there was always a town nearby. There was also a town near Auschwitz. Auschwitz, people lived a normal life there. So anyhow, I knew. I said, Auschwitz. We're going to Auschwitz, okay? I didn't care. I was so happy that I was outside. Within a very short time, we started walking. The train was waiting. My parents were separated. That's the first time. We were always together. My father was crying, and I remember I was little, so my mother picked me up, because I don't know if anybody of you either have been either to Auschwitz or to New York City. They have the cattle car by the museum, right outside, right. You saw the cattle car and it's that high, very hard to get on it. So she had to pick me up. She put me in and my father said, Be a good girl. I said, Yeah, I'll be a good girl. And he went to another cattle car. I was with my mother, and then a 36 hour drive began, no food, no no food and no drink, very hot, because they were all women. 150 women, and no bathrooms. And I remember, I said, Mom, I have to go. I have to go. She didn't answer me. And then I said to myself, Oh, I know everybody's going where they're standing. I think that that was a dividing line between being human and being inhuman. We're all dressed like normal kids. I had braids, you know, when we walked out, we were all covered with feces, because everybody was going everywhere. And many people had died, and I am outside standing watching all this going on, and my mother says to me, Get undressed. And I said, why? It was about July, August. It was summertime. Why? She said to me, they want to check if we're healthy. So I, very obedient, by the way, very, very. My mother taught me rules, and I'll tell you about the rules. So I took off my clothes, and she said, don't look at the eyes of the dogs. Don't look at anybody's eyes, because these the Germans came with their dogs. And When I was by myself, in the in the labor camp, she also taught me, because I was alone, never have eye contact. She said, eye contact will make you recognize and when you see a dog stand still, which is counterintuitive. I was frightened, terrified of the dogs more than of the Germans, but she said, the dogs will think that you're running away, and they are trained to kill when somebody's trying to run away. So in other words, she always trained me how to be self sufficient, how to recognize danger and what to do with it. So eye contact is pure danger, and running is pure danger. So I learned very, very easily how to do that. So when I'm there, I'm standing very still, the dogs are passing by. And then I say, what's the smell, it stinks here. I said, it stinks. She pointed to the crematorium. They were taking the burning bodies from the gas chamber, and it was all black, and you could smell it. And you know what? She didn't have to say anymore. I knew it. So I remember saying, Mom, how do I look? How do I look? And she said, Oh, you look good. I said, Am I healthy? She said, Yeah, you're very healthy. I said, what about you? Oh, I'm healthy too. She said. And somehow we made it. I tried to find out. I wrote a book together with a researcher. He tried to research. He lives in England. What happened that day? Every child under the age of 12 or 13 was taken straight to the crematorium. We're useless. Old people, pregnant people, sick people. What is old, 50 and over, because you can't work. Even in Auschwitz, you had to work. Even when you waited for your death, there was some job they gave you. So that you had to be healthy, at least. Anyhow, I don't really know. I was told that we arrived on a Sunday, and Sunday they were the Germans were Christians, so they didn't want to open another crematorium. They had four going. They didn't want the fifth. That's somehow how I and my mother survived. My whole transport, not just me. We were all, you know, a bunch of people. We went to another room. They shaved my head. I remember that very well, because they picked me up and I was, I was quite small, so they picked me up, put me on a bench, and the woman did my hair. And she herself, and I couldn't find my mother, and they gave me some clothes, because they've taken my clothes by the train. And then she found me, and then she took my hand, and we followed a whole bunch of people into Auschwitz proper. This was outside of Auschwitz before you were like, ready, and so you went inside. We got a middle bed, and then she started teaching me again. She said, you know, there'll be a lot of people here sleeping. More women, so when you're asleep, you can't move around so much, because then everybody else has to move. Okay. And I said, What about if I have to go to the bathroom? She says, No, you can't. That was a terrible thing for me as a child. I had to hold it, because they had it twice a day to the bathroom. And then she said, Look, you're going to get a cup. I didn't get it yet. We were going to be getting a cup, a tin cup, a spoon and a bowl. If tyou lose it, and if somebody steals it, you'll go hungry and you'll die. She said, they don't look at you. You take out the bowl. Somebody gives you something to eat. Nobody touched it, by the way. I was so aware of it. I just want to go a little fast forward, because I need your questions. I need to know what you want to know. And then one of the things I told you is bathroom for kids. It was hard for me to hold it. Well one day, we were all on line, and I really had to go. So I went in front of the line, and I was in such a hurry that I fell. The way the bathrooms were, I don't know if anybody's been to Auschwitz. The slabs of the boards. It was big, gigantic holes. The holes were like, maybe this size. My grandkids, who are, one of them is 6”2, got the privilege, because of me, to try out those bathrooms. He sat on it and he said, Grandma, I don't know how you didn't of course, you fell in. He said, It's too big for me. I fell inside. And of course, they got me out and they hosed me down, but I must have picked up some kind of a bug. There were rats there, there were feces up to here. And I got very sick, but I knew that sickness meant death, so I was very careful not to tell anybody, but that somebody saw me, and they said, this child, this child is ill. And they were so scared of illness, because illness meant death immediately. Because every morning they came, they picked up the dead, the sick, on one of those three wheel things. Wheelbarrow, wheelbarrow, to the crematorium. So I was afraid to be one of them. And then somebody said she's sick. She's going to infect all of us. They picked me up. I don't remember much about that, because I was really ill, and they took me to one of those places, a hospital, without doctors. When I woke up, I must have had fever, they told me no more. You can't go back to your mother. And that's when they took me to the children's place. For the first time, I saw so many children, I never knew they even existed, and they tattooed me. I remember. They said, Oh, your name is such and such. No, it's 27,633. And the woman said, Say it. Say it. I couldn't say it. I don't know what numbers were. Never went to school, but she was so kind. She taught me. She said it again. She said, just say the words, say the words. And I did it, and I learned. And she gave me a rag with cold water. She said, press it hard. Don't rub. It'll swell. I was there just about towards the end of the war. But one day, I got a package and it said, Happy sixth birthday. I'm six. I didn't know it. I said, Oh, my mother must be somewhere, and she's alive, because she gave me a package. It was a piece of bread, but I was going to save it until I'm dead. I imagine there's a little girl I'm going to be dying, dying, dying, like everybody is dying, but I won't, because I'll take that piece of bread and I'll eat it. I didn't know anything about bread getting stale. I know nothing about bread, so I remember keeping it here, just like that, because it was on a piece of string. In the middle of the night, rats came, ate up everything, tore my clothing, but they didn't touch me. Miracle. There were a number of miracles that, I should have been dead. All I can tell you is, within a few weeks, something weird was going on at Auschwitz. I did not know. Terrible noise, terrible shooting. Dogs were barking, and the person who was in charge of us, it was always a kapo, an adult woman, was gone. The door was open, but we didn't dare open the door. We heard the dogs outside, and shooting. We were frightened and we were hungry. There wasn't even the little bit that we got every day, even that wasn't there. And all of a sudden, the door opens, and my mother–I didn't know it was my mother–a woman comes in full of rags. She looks terrible. She looks around. Nobody's saying a word. She looks around, she looks around, she comes over to me, and she looks at me, and she bends down like on her knees a little bit. She says my name, and she says, You don't know me. I'm your mother. I thought to myself, my mother, she doesn't look like my mother. I only saw my mother six, seven months earlier, but she didn't look anything like it. She just looked just, I can't even describe it. But she convinced me and listen to what she said. She looked at me. She said, You look like you can survive. Look at me. Her feet were swollen, and she said, listen, we're going to try to hide. We will either survive together or die together. What do you think? I said, I want to be with you. I don't care what. She takes my hand and we snuck, we didn't even have to sneak out because the door was open, but the other kids refused to leave. We were all so frightened, but somehow we got out. She's walking. She's walking. Outside the dogs are barking. It's terrible. We're walking very close to the barracks, and she comes to a house, door. She walks. She must have had a plan. I didn't know that. And it's a hospital without doctors. All these people are screaming and crying and she goes from bed to bed. She touches everybody. I don't ask a question. And I'm wondering, why is she doing that? She found a corpse that she liked. It was a corpse of a young woman, maybe twenty, now I look back at it to me, she was an adult, in the 20s, nice, nice looking woman who must have just died because she was warm. So she could manipulate her body. I remember my mother took off my shoes, picked me up, and she said, Listen, don't breathe. I'm going to cover you up. No matter what you hear–because she knew I couldn't see anything–what you hear don't get uncovered. Try to breathe into the ground. She takes my face, she puts it towards the floor, and she manipulates my body, and she puts me very close to the corpse, and then she covers it up, and outside, you only see the head of the woman who died, and her hands, and her hands are holding like the blanket, so you can't see. All of a sudden, I can hear screaming and yelling. I don't move. I obey orders. And I can hear steps. I remember the steps, and somebody stopped, and I say to myself, Oh, I'm going to stop breathing. I stopped breathing. I was afraid that the blanket would move. Well, I just couldn't anymore. The person walked away, and then screaming and yelling went on, I didn't move. And all of a sudden I smelled smoke, and I said, How can I not get uncovered? In the beginning, I still breathed very shallow, but I couldn't. And I said, I'll have to get uncovered to get air. And then all of a sudden, my mother pulls the blanket off me and says in Yiddish, they're gone. The Germans are gone. And she must have hidden with another corpse. And when I sit up in the bed, all these people have been hiding with other corpses. And in order to get out, they were pushing the corpses off the beds, so the corpses were flying everywhere, you know, while the people who were hidden under the corpses. So she says to me, come. I couldn't find my shoes, so I walked without and she takes my hand, and we were all walking. It was January 25, 1945. Germans have all gone. Taken with them, 50,000 people. Other people were just dying everywhere, and the Russians had not come yet. The Russians came two days later. So we had two days inside the camp, without anybody, without the Germans. And we waited until they came, but there was electrified still. We couldn't get out. There was electricity everywhere. So we waited till the Russians came. And while we were standing by the barbed wires, I saw all these soldiers jump off trucks, and they were doing something with electricity. Then they could open the doors. And it was January 27 the liberation of Auschwitz, where children, whoever was left, was left. But many were in the process of dying, and you couldn't stop it. Hundreds and hundreds of people died while the Russians were there, because you couldn't stop whatever they had, you know. And I remember, the Russians said, show us your number. Some kids were standing there. There's a picture of it, and I'm standing in front showing my number. And I'm talking for all the kids who didn't make it to that day. So thank you for listening. Did I take too much time? I'm sorry. Manya Brachear Pashman: I don't think you can take too much time sharing that story. I know that there's so much more to share. So many miracles, Tova. Tova Friedman: Yes. Manya Brachear Pashman: You have spent most of your adult life sharing your story to advance Holocaust education, and I'm curious what was the catalyst for that? Did someone ask you to share your story? Tova Friedman: I tried to talk to people when I came to America. Because my teachers, I could read. I didn't go to school till I was 12. So I wanted to tell them why, but nobody heard me. Nobody cared. Nobody wanted to talk about it. But one day, when my oldest daughter was 15, she said to me, they're looking for a Holocaust survivor in school. Can you come to my class? That's how I started. Manya Brachear Pashman: And then your grandson, many years later, introduced you to this thing called Tiktok, right? Tova Friedman: I didn't know what Tiktok was because my daughter worked for a candy company called Tic Tac. You know the Tic Tac that you eat, the little white things that you have, like they make noise and stuff. So that's her company. Well, it's not her. She works for them. So I said to my son, what would a candy company be interested in the Holocaust? It's the same word. In fact, I still don't know the difference. Tik tok? Tic Tac? Manya Brachear Pashman: Tic Tacs. Tova Friedman: Tic Tac and TikTok? Manya Brachear Pashman: Yes. Right, that's what you're on, TikTok. Tova Friedman: A refugee is always a refugee. So he said to me, we had Shabbos dinner in his house, and he said, Can you give me two minutes? I said, Of course. He said, Just tell me something about yourself. Two minutes, because the people who are going to hear it have a two minute span. They can't listen to more than two minutes. I said, What should I say? Anything? Okay, my name and two minutes. Goes very quickly. And then all of a sudden, a half hour later, he said, people are interested. I said, what people? He said, on this. I said, on what? You have a phone in your hand. What are they, who? And that's how it started. He first explained to me the system, what it means, and he got questions. He said, Would you like to answer the questions? I said, Who's asking? You know, I mean, I'm not in the generation of social media. I don't even have Facebook. I don't know any of that stuff. So he explained to me, he taught me, and he's very good at it. He's a wonderful guy. He's now 20. He's at WashU. And he became the person who's going to try to keep it going. Manya Brachear Pashman: Well, your presence on Tiktok is really this wonderful, really, very innovative way of reaching people, of reaching young people, Jewish and non-Jewish. Tova Friedman: Right. Manya Brachear Pashman: Lisa, you've come up with some unusual ways to reach young people. You were a middle school teacher until two years ago. Is that right? But you had this project where you had your students draw stick figures, and this was more than two decades ago when you started this. Can you tell us a little bit about the stick figures, which is like the polar opposite of Tiktok, but just as innovative? Lise Marlowe: So when I started teaching the Holocaust, and the first thing you say is 6 million Jews were murdered just for being Jewish, I realized the number did not shock students. I mean, it was sad, and they were empathetic, but the number 6 million…when we think about this generation and our sports heroes and our celebrities making millions of dollars, 6 million didn't sound like a big number. So at the time, I just had students take out a piece of paper and draw 20 stick figures across the paper. And to keep doing that for five minutes to see how many we could draw in five minutes. And my class, on the average, could draw, almost all of our elementary schools and middle schools in five minutes time, thousands of stick figures in five minutes time. And then the next day, when I went to my lesson, I'm teaching the Hitler's rise to power, one of my students stopped me and said, Wait, Mrs. Marlowe, aren't we going to draw stick figures? And I said, What do you mean? And she said, Well, I went home and I talked to my grandmother, and the other students were jealous that we're drawing stick figures. And I think if we get together, my church and all of our friends, we pull together, I think we can draw 6 million. Tova Friedman: Wow. Lise Marlowe: And I said, you want to do this? And she said, Yes, I want to do that. So it warms my heart that every year I had hundreds and hundreds of students drawing stick figures, mostly not Jewish students. We are in a very diverse community in Shawnee school district, one of the most diverse in the state, mostly students of color, and I had them handing me in 1000s of stick figures every week, it covered our whole entire gym floor. And when I retired, sadly, we did not get to all the children, because we know 1.5 million children were murdered. There was 1.6 million children to start with, and that means 94% of all the Jewish children were murdered in Europe, and we did not reach that milestone. And that shows that 6 million is a big number. And I have students like, you know, they're in their 30s and 40s now, who will always stop me on the street and say, did you get to 6 million. They always remember that's that project, and I have to, sadly tell them, we didn't even finish the children. Manya Brachear Pashman: Tova, I would say that teaching is your side gig, right? You certainly have done so much to advance education, but professionally, you're a therapist, and I'm curious if your experience, your lived experience, has informed how you communicate with your patients? Tova Friedman: I think it does. You know, to me, time has been always of essence. Time is the only thing we have. Money comes and goes. You look at the stock market. Tight now, it goes. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down. Time is the only thing. Once you lose it, it's done. So when I get a therapist, that's how I always thought, because timing to me, like, how many people just died that didn't have the time, like those 6 million people that you drew. And the children, how much they could have accomplished, had they had time, right? Time was taken from them. So when I get a client, the first thing I say, listen, we're not going to be here forever. We're not going to sit and talk about your parents and your grandparents. Five years from now, you'll be able to maybe. No, it's going to be time-limited, and it's going to be quick. And you have to accept my style, or there's so many people who love having you for 10 years. I need 10 weeks or less. That means that their goals, you accomplish them. I'm a little tough, and I say I'm not going to hold your hand, even if I could. I can't anymore because of COVID and because a lot of it is on Zoom. But even when I had them in my office, I said, I will not be a therapist who's going to sympathize, sympathize, sympathize. I'll sympathize for five minutes, then we're going to work. And a lot of people will say to me, Oh, that's exactly what I needed, somebody to really push me a little bit. I said, Yeah, but that's the way it's going to be. And others say, Wow, you're a mean person. I don't want to want to be here. I said, there are hundreds of other therapists. So yes, Holocaust has taught me, eat it fast, or somebody else will take it. I'm sorry, but also that's one thing. But let's talk about the good things. This is good too, but. My degree was in gerontology, because Hitler was, that's the most vulnerable in our society. You know, the elderly become alcoholics. Loneliness is among the elderly, financial issues. You know, loneliness is a killer. And I worked with the elderly to help them. I felt that's, that's the people that are sort of redundant. So that's where I worked with. I did it for years. And then I went to other age groups. I feel that my experience gives them courage. You know, come on, come on. Let's do it. Try it. Don't worry. What can happen? What can happen if you speak to your to your father or to your mother and you say this and this, what can happen? In my mind, I said–I don't tell them that, and don't say I said that–I said there are no gas chambers here. So just you know, in my mind, I said, the consequences are minor, so let's do it. And it works. Manya Brachear Pashman: And I wondered if it was the level, the level of trauma, pales in comparison to what you went through? Tova Friedman: No, no. Manya Brachear Pashman: That's what I was wondering. Tova Friedman: I feel that every trauma is different than, you know. You can't say, Well, my foot hurts, and it's so, big deal. So your foot hurts, my two feet hurt. No. Every pain deserves a healing, even if it's a little toe, it deserves it. And I take it very seriously. Most clients don't know about me, hopefully. I don't talk about anything personal. But I'm a little bit, you know, we don't have time on this earth. Let's make it as good as possible. Manya Brachear Pashman: Thank you, thank you for sharing that. Lisa, I want to ask about your family, about your great grandmother's efforts. She was not Jewish, but she saved thousands of Jews in Denmark, and I'm curious how that story was passed down in your family. Lise Marlowe: So I started learning the Holocaust at a very young age, because my grandfather was from Denmark, and he actually fought against the Nazis for the Danish Navy, and he would share with me how his mother rescued Jews in boats, in fishing boats, and take them to Sweden. And I never really heard that story before. And I was able to go to Denmark and go to Sweden and do more research. And I learned that she was actually the editor of Land of Folk newspaper, which was a major resistance newspaper. 23 million copies were given out secretly to make sure that people knew what was happening. But I was so proud, you know, being Jewish that my non-Jewish side of my family helped to rescue people, and I think it really helped me with the work that I do now, and standing up, and social justice, that's always been a passion of mine, and I think just her story inspired me to stand up for others. And they literally saved 99% of the population by getting them to Sweden. And it's really a truly heroic story that's not told that much. But the Danish people, if you ask them, they're very humble, and their attitude is, it's what people are supposed to do. So I'm just very proud of that Danish heritage. Tova Friedman: Do you think that their king or something has something to do with it? Leaders? Tell me about that? Lise Marlowe: It's a myth, right, that King Christian wore a Jewish star. He did say, if the Nazis require our Danish Jewish people to wear the star, I will wear it with the highest dignity. Along with my family. And Danish people didn't treat the Jews as the other. They considered them their friends and their neighbors, and that's why they did what they did. Tova Friedman: Wonderful. Lise Marlowe: They didn't see them as the other, which is such an incredible lesson to teach students. Tova Friedman: Yes, yeah. Manya Brachear Pashman: Preserving these stories is so important, your experiences. Have you witnessed as lasting an effort to preserve the stories and pass down the stories of the righteous among us, like your great grandmother. And I ask you both this question, is it as important? Tova Friedman: I think it's, you know, Israel, there is this wonderful, in Yad Vashem, the big museum, there's a whole avenue of the righteous. You know, I ask myself, what would I do if my family would be in danger in order to save somebody else, and the answer is, I don't know. But I am so utterly amazed that people do that. And there are many–well, not enough–but this is very impressive, your story, and I would love to learn. I don't know the answer, what separates one person from the other, that one is selfless and looks at humanity and one only at their own families? I wish some studies would be done and so forth. Because we have to do something right now. We are now considered the others. You know, we are, in this world, all over Europe, except, ironically, not in Germany. I was in Germany, and I spoke to German kids, high school kids in German. I didn't know I knew German. I just got up and I saw they were trying so hard to understand. I had an interpreter, and I didn't understand the interpreter. And I said, Let me try. Let me try. I speak Yiddish fluently and German a little bit like that. Also, I lived three years in Germany, so I didn't speak it, but it must have come into my head. And do you know what they did after my speech? 250 kids? They came over. They apologized. I mean, they're a generation separated. I went to Dachau, where my father was, and there were two women whose parents or grandparents were Nazis, and they said to me, we're dedicating our entire life to preserve this Dachau andcamp and and they they have, they give talks and Everything, because my family killed your family, but they admit it. So right now, Germany has laws against it. But what about the rest of the world? What's happening in America? So I would love to know how the Danish did that. It's a wonderful story. It makes your heart feel good, you know. Thank you for the story. Lise Marlowe: I would just add, the survivors we have today were the children who survived, right? Most of the adults are gone. And they were the hidden children. And most of them were hidden by non-Jewish people. Actually, all of them were. The Catholic Church, a farm lady, you know, who said, she took kindness on them. So you know, the hidden children were mostly hidden by non-Jewish people in terms of the righteous of the nations. Manya Brachear Pashman: Thank you both so much for your insights. This has been a really illuminating conversation. If you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with AJC Chief Policy and Political Affairs Advisor Jason Isaacson, about legacy of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, the U.S. withdrawal from that deal in 2018, and Iran's dangerous stockpiling of uranium that's getting them closer to nuclear weapons capabilities. You can also listen to our latest episode about the impact of Pope Francis on Jewish-Catholic relations. From April 27-29, 2025, we will be at AJC Global Forum in New York City. Join American Jewish Committee (AJC) and over 2,000 committed activists at the premier global Jewish advocacy conference of the year. After the horrific attack on October 7, 2023, and in this fraught moment for the global Jewish community, escalating threats worldwide underscore the importance of our mission. All who care about the fate of the Jewish people, Israel, and the values of the civilized world must respond now with action, urgency, and resolve. If ever there was a time to stand up and be counted, that time is now. Your voice is needed now more than ever. If you won't be with us in person, you can tune into the webcast at AJC.org/GlobalForum2025.
Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past (Oxford UP, 2024) is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small village in rural Germany. Based on meticulous research and using powerful visual storytelling, the book provides a multilayered narrative that explores the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish villagers from the First World War to the present. Its focus on how "ordinary" people experienced this time offers a new and illuminating insight into everyday life and the processes of violence, rupture, and reconciliation that characterized the history of the twentieth century in Germany and beyond. The graphic narrative is accompanied by source documents published in English translation for the first time, an essay on the wider historical context, and an incisive reflection on the writing of this book—and of history more broadly. Kim Wünschmann is Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews and teaches at the University of Hamburg. She obtained her Ph.D. from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research centers on German Jewish history, Holocaust Studies, and legal history. She held fellowships at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. She was DAAD Lecturer at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex and Research Associate at the Department of History at LMU Munich. Her Publications include Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (Harvard University Press, 2015), awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. She is also the co-editor of Living the German Revolution 1918–19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses (Oxford University Press, 2023) and together with Stefanie Fischer co-author of the Graphic History Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past, illustrated by Liz Clarke (Oxford University Press, 2024) . Stefanie Fischer a Senior Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. Her fields of scholarly research are German Jewish history and Holocaust Studies. Fischer is the author of Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919-1939. Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence (Indiana University Press, 2024) and with Kim Wünschmann of Oberbrechen. A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past (Oxford University Press, 2025). She is also co-editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (Oxford University Press, since 2024). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past (Oxford UP, 2024) is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small village in rural Germany. Based on meticulous research and using powerful visual storytelling, the book provides a multilayered narrative that explores the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish villagers from the First World War to the present. Its focus on how "ordinary" people experienced this time offers a new and illuminating insight into everyday life and the processes of violence, rupture, and reconciliation that characterized the history of the twentieth century in Germany and beyond. The graphic narrative is accompanied by source documents published in English translation for the first time, an essay on the wider historical context, and an incisive reflection on the writing of this book—and of history more broadly. Kim Wünschmann is Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews and teaches at the University of Hamburg. She obtained her Ph.D. from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research centers on German Jewish history, Holocaust Studies, and legal history. She held fellowships at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. She was DAAD Lecturer at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex and Research Associate at the Department of History at LMU Munich. Her Publications include Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (Harvard University Press, 2015), awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. She is also the co-editor of Living the German Revolution 1918–19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses (Oxford University Press, 2023) and together with Stefanie Fischer co-author of the Graphic History Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past, illustrated by Liz Clarke (Oxford University Press, 2024) . Stefanie Fischer a Senior Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. Her fields of scholarly research are German Jewish history and Holocaust Studies. Fischer is the author of Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919-1939. Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence (Indiana University Press, 2024) and with Kim Wünschmann of Oberbrechen. A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past (Oxford University Press, 2025). She is also co-editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (Oxford University Press, since 2024). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
Jack Fairweather brings the same rigour and narrative flair that won him the Costa Book of the Year award for The Volunteer, to his new book, The Prosecutor, which tells the story of Fritz Bauer, a gay German Jew, who retuned to West Germany on a mission to prosecute Nazi war criminals and found himself opposed on all sides in forcing the German people to reckon with their past. Join us for a fascinating conversation about personal responsibility, public prosecution, and the personal cost to a very determined man.
Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past (Oxford UP, 2024) is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small village in rural Germany. Based on meticulous research and using powerful visual storytelling, the book provides a multilayered narrative that explores the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish villagers from the First World War to the present. Its focus on how "ordinary" people experienced this time offers a new and illuminating insight into everyday life and the processes of violence, rupture, and reconciliation that characterized the history of the twentieth century in Germany and beyond. The graphic narrative is accompanied by source documents published in English translation for the first time, an essay on the wider historical context, and an incisive reflection on the writing of this book—and of history more broadly. Kim Wünschmann is Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews and teaches at the University of Hamburg. She obtained her Ph.D. from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research centers on German Jewish history, Holocaust Studies, and legal history. She held fellowships at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. She was DAAD Lecturer at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex and Research Associate at the Department of History at LMU Munich. Her Publications include Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (Harvard University Press, 2015), awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. She is also the co-editor of Living the German Revolution 1918–19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses (Oxford University Press, 2023) and together with Stefanie Fischer co-author of the Graphic History Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past, illustrated by Liz Clarke (Oxford University Press, 2024) . Stefanie Fischer a Senior Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. Her fields of scholarly research are German Jewish history and Holocaust Studies. Fischer is the author of Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919-1939. Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence (Indiana University Press, 2024) and with Kim Wünschmann of Oberbrechen. A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past (Oxford University Press, 2025). She is also co-editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (Oxford University Press, since 2024). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies
Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past (Oxford UP, 2024) is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small village in rural Germany. Based on meticulous research and using powerful visual storytelling, the book provides a multilayered narrative that explores the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish villagers from the First World War to the present. Its focus on how "ordinary" people experienced this time offers a new and illuminating insight into everyday life and the processes of violence, rupture, and reconciliation that characterized the history of the twentieth century in Germany and beyond. The graphic narrative is accompanied by source documents published in English translation for the first time, an essay on the wider historical context, and an incisive reflection on the writing of this book—and of history more broadly. Kim Wünschmann is Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews and teaches at the University of Hamburg. She obtained her Ph.D. from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research centers on German Jewish history, Holocaust Studies, and legal history. She held fellowships at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. She was DAAD Lecturer at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex and Research Associate at the Department of History at LMU Munich. Her Publications include Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (Harvard University Press, 2015), awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. She is also the co-editor of Living the German Revolution 1918–19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses (Oxford University Press, 2023) and together with Stefanie Fischer co-author of the Graphic History Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past, illustrated by Liz Clarke (Oxford University Press, 2024) . Stefanie Fischer a Senior Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. Her fields of scholarly research are German Jewish history and Holocaust Studies. Fischer is the author of Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919-1939. Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence (Indiana University Press, 2024) and with Kim Wünschmann of Oberbrechen. A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past (Oxford University Press, 2025). She is also co-editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (Oxford University Press, since 2024). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past (Oxford UP, 2024) is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small village in rural Germany. Based on meticulous research and using powerful visual storytelling, the book provides a multilayered narrative that explores the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish villagers from the First World War to the present. Its focus on how "ordinary" people experienced this time offers a new and illuminating insight into everyday life and the processes of violence, rupture, and reconciliation that characterized the history of the twentieth century in Germany and beyond. The graphic narrative is accompanied by source documents published in English translation for the first time, an essay on the wider historical context, and an incisive reflection on the writing of this book—and of history more broadly. Kim Wünschmann is Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews and teaches at the University of Hamburg. She obtained her Ph.D. from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research centers on German Jewish history, Holocaust Studies, and legal history. She held fellowships at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. She was DAAD Lecturer at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex and Research Associate at the Department of History at LMU Munich. Her Publications include Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (Harvard University Press, 2015), awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. She is also the co-editor of Living the German Revolution 1918–19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses (Oxford University Press, 2023) and together with Stefanie Fischer co-author of the Graphic History Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past, illustrated by Liz Clarke (Oxford University Press, 2024) . Stefanie Fischer a Senior Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. Her fields of scholarly research are German Jewish history and Holocaust Studies. Fischer is the author of Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919-1939. Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence (Indiana University Press, 2024) and with Kim Wünschmann of Oberbrechen. A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past (Oxford University Press, 2025). She is also co-editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (Oxford University Press, since 2024). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies
Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past (Oxford UP, 2024) is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small village in rural Germany. Based on meticulous research and using powerful visual storytelling, the book provides a multilayered narrative that explores the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish villagers from the First World War to the present. Its focus on how "ordinary" people experienced this time offers a new and illuminating insight into everyday life and the processes of violence, rupture, and reconciliation that characterized the history of the twentieth century in Germany and beyond. The graphic narrative is accompanied by source documents published in English translation for the first time, an essay on the wider historical context, and an incisive reflection on the writing of this book—and of history more broadly. Kim Wünschmann is Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews and teaches at the University of Hamburg. She obtained her Ph.D. from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research centers on German Jewish history, Holocaust Studies, and legal history. She held fellowships at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. She was DAAD Lecturer at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex and Research Associate at the Department of History at LMU Munich. Her Publications include Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (Harvard University Press, 2015), awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. She is also the co-editor of Living the German Revolution 1918–19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses (Oxford University Press, 2023) and together with Stefanie Fischer co-author of the Graphic History Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past, illustrated by Liz Clarke (Oxford University Press, 2024) . Stefanie Fischer a Senior Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. Her fields of scholarly research are German Jewish history and Holocaust Studies. Fischer is the author of Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919-1939. Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence (Indiana University Press, 2024) and with Kim Wünschmann of Oberbrechen. A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past (Oxford University Press, 2025). She is also co-editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (Oxford University Press, since 2024). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past (Oxford UP, 2024) is a new title in OUP's Graphic History Series that chronicles the events of the Holocaust and its aftermath in a small village in rural Germany. Based on meticulous research and using powerful visual storytelling, the book provides a multilayered narrative that explores the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish villagers from the First World War to the present. Its focus on how "ordinary" people experienced this time offers a new and illuminating insight into everyday life and the processes of violence, rupture, and reconciliation that characterized the history of the twentieth century in Germany and beyond. The graphic narrative is accompanied by source documents published in English translation for the first time, an essay on the wider historical context, and an incisive reflection on the writing of this book—and of history more broadly. Kim Wünschmann is Director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews and teaches at the University of Hamburg. She obtained her Ph.D. from Birkbeck, University of London. Her research centers on German Jewish history, Holocaust Studies, and legal history. She held fellowships at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. She was DAAD Lecturer at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex and Research Associate at the Department of History at LMU Munich. Her Publications include Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (Harvard University Press, 2015), awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. She is also the co-editor of Living the German Revolution 1918–19: Expectations, Experiences, Responses (Oxford University Press, 2023) and together with Stefanie Fischer co-author of the Graphic History Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past, illustrated by Liz Clarke (Oxford University Press, 2024) . Stefanie Fischer a Senior Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. Her fields of scholarly research are German Jewish history and Holocaust Studies. Fischer is the author of Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919-1939. Economic Trust and Antisemitic Violence (Indiana University Press, 2024) and with Kim Wünschmann of Oberbrechen. A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past (Oxford University Press, 2025). She is also co-editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (Oxford University Press, since 2024).
Nesting by Roisin O'Donnell On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change her life. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe. It was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan's relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another. One Hundred Years of Betty by Debra Oswald Meet Betty: storyteller, feminist, eternally curious and phenomenally old. On the eve of her hundredth birthday party, Betty tells us her story. Born into poverty in pre-war London, and growing up fast during the Blitz, Betty grabs the chance at a bigger life by migrating to Australia. On board the SS Asturias she meets three people who will influence the course of her life—Pearl, a good-hearted party girl; Athena, a Greek woman on her way to marry a man she has never met; and Leo, a German Jew who lost his family in the war. In Sydney, Betty is making ends meet as a waitress at the famous Trocadero dance hall when she stumbles into a rushed courtship with Donald, a wealthy businessman, and dedicates herself to being the ideal 1950s suburban housewife. But life has other plans for Betty, and soon she must find a way to do more than survive. Set against a century of world events and social upheavals, Betty takes us to the frontlines of the anti-war protests and the women's liberation movement of the 1970s, to the AIDS crisis during the 1980s, to Mexico and eventually becomes a TV screenwriter. Even in her nineties, Betty is still passionately engaged with the world, still surprising us. From the creator of Offspring and bestselling author of The Family Doctor, One Hundred Years of Betty is the saga of a strong, intelligent woman born too early in time to make the most of her talents without having to fight for everything. It's about the defining force of motherhood, the family we make, and how the determination to live to the hilt, with all the joy and sorrow that entails, can lead to a life beyond one's wildest imaginings. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In The Prosecutor: One Man's Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice, Jack Fairweather tells the story of a Jewish lawyer who fled the Nazis, only to return and put them on trial—despite resistance from the West German government. Plus, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, whom Trump calls a "Radical Left Lunatic," may not be so radical after all. And in the spiel, Mike unpacks a Washington Post “fact check” of Trump's Voice of America cuts, revealing it as more rhetorical sleight of hand than rigorous analysis. Produced by Corey Wara Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/TheGist Subscribe to The Gist: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ Subscribe to The Gist Youtube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_bh0wHgk2YfpKf4rg40_g Subscribe to The Gist Instagram Page: GIST INSTAGRAM Follow Mikes Substack at: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Send us a message or question! *** Episode on general release on Wednesday 12th March 2025. In this episode of Never Mind the Dambusters, we have an incredible conversation with Marc Stevens as he shares the extraordinary story of his father, the man he knew as Squadron Leader Peter Stevens, MC. It was only some years after his father's death that Marc discovered his true identity, and the tragic story behind the events he uncovered. We explore Peter's remarkable journey from German school boy to RAF Bomber Command pilot, his wartime experiences—including being shot down, captured, and making daring escapes—and the impact of these events on his life and legacy. Marc also reflects on how his father's past shaped their family, culminating in a discussion about his book, which chronicles Peter's incredible story.You can order a copy of Marc's book, Escape, Evasion and Revenge hereSupport the showPlease subscribe to Never Mind The Dambusters wherever you get your podcasts. You can support the show, and help us produce great content, by becoming a paid subscriber from just $3 a month here https://www.buzzsprout.com/2327200/support . Supporters get early access to episodes and invitations to livestreams. Thank you for listening! You can reach out to us on social media at @RAF_BomberPod (X) or @NeverMindTheDambusters (Instagram)You can find out about James' research, articles, lectures and podcasts here .You can read more about Jane's work on her website at https://www.justcuriousjane.com/, and listen to podcasts/media stuff here
Subscriber-only episodeSend us a message or question! *** Episode on general release on Wednesday 12th March 2025. In this episode of Never Mind the Dambusters, we have an incredible conversation with Marc Stevens as he shares the extraordinary story of his father, the man he knew as Squadron Leader Peter Stevens, MC. It was only some years after his father's death that Marc discovered his true identity, and the tragic story behind the events he uncovered. We explore Peter's remarkable journey from German school boy to RAF Bomber Command pilot, his wartime experiences—including being shot down, captured, and making daring escapes—and the impact of these events on his life and legacy. Marc also reflects on how his father's past shaped their family, culminating in a discussion about his book, which chronicles Peter's incredible story.You can order a copy of Marc's book, Escape, Evasion and Revenge herePlease subscribe to Never Mind The Dambusters wherever you get your podcasts. You can support the show, and help us produce great content, by becoming a paid subscriber from just $3 a month here https://www.buzzsprout.com/2327200/support . Supporters get early access to episodes and invitations to livestreams. Thank you for listening! You can reach out to us on social media at @RAF_BomberPod (X) or @NeverMindTheDambusters (Instagram)You can find out about James' research, articles, lectures and podcasts here .You can read more about Jane's work on her website at https://www.justcuriousjane.com/, and listen to podcasts/media stuff here
For Karl Adler, there is nothing more powerful than music. While recovering from an injury sustained as a soldier in World War I, Karl pursues his goal of changing the way music is taught in Germany. And for a while, he's successful – until a former student (and member of Hitler's Brownshirts) falsely reports him for sexual harassment. Forced to start over, Karl devotes himself to creating a new cultural association for German Jews. As antisemitic laws take hold and Jews begin to flee Germany en masse, Karl continues to connect people through music – even as the world falls apart around him. The Karl Adler collection at LBI documents his entire career, including his engagement at the Royal Court Opera of Wurttemberg, his WWI service, and his work with the Conservatory and the Jewish Culture League in Stuttgart. Records of the Jüdische Mittelstelle show Adler intervening with the Gestapo on behalf of Jewish families seeking news of their husbands and fathers who had disappeared or been arrested. A folder of materials he collected about the Jewish history of Buttenhausen includes a photograph of Adler, his voice raised in song, at the dedication of his native town's Holocaust memorial in 1961. Learn more at lbi.org/adler. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York and Antica Productions. It's narrated by Mandy Patinkin. This episode was written by Nadia Mehdi. Our executive producers are Laura Regehr, Rami Tzabar, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Our producer is Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Voice acting by Cyrus Lane and David Walpole. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Please consider supporting the work of the Leo Baeck Institute with a tax-deductible contribution by visiting lbi.org/exile2025. This episode of Exile is made possible in part by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Finance and the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future.
After Hamas submitted a two-page report documenting multiple violations of the tense ceasefire in place since January 19, and said it would on its end delay the release of some hostages until the issues are resolved, the Israeli government is now ramping up for another phase of all-out war against the Palestinian people. Benjamin Netanyahu threatened that if all Israeli hostages are not released by Saturday the 15th, he would “let all hell break loose.”The developments also come days after Donald Trump claims that there is no right of return for Palestinians, who have been fighting for their homeland since even before the Nakba, or catastrophe, in 1948. He boasted of creating a “riviera of the Middle East” in Gaza, along with American and Israeli real estate developers. Some versions of the proposed plan being pushed by hardcore Zionists would force Gazans in particular to the island of Soctra, southwest of Yemen, eerily reminiscent of the Nazi plans to deport German Jews to Madagascar drawn up by Adolf Eichmann in 1940.As imperialism brings the world closer to regional and possibly global conflict once again, we're going to get into what's happening in the Middle East, the White House and beyond.Support the show
Welcome to our Shovavim Humility series. We've been going through the progression of the Galut . We started off that when the Jewish people came into Mitzrayim, Yaakov Avinu was only a Ger, as ut says, לגור שם ,and the brothers came as Gerim . Then, as is quoted in the Hagaddah Shel Pesach, from Ki Tavo, וַיְהִי שָׁם לְגוֹי. / They were a nation, which means שֶׁהָיוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל מְצֻיָּנִים שָׁם. גָּדוֹל עָצוּם כְּמָה They were outstanding, they were gadol . They were great . And it quotes from the pasuk שֶּׁנֶּאֱמַר, וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל פָּרוּ וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ וַיִּרְבּוּ וַיַּעַצְמוּ בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד , וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ אֹתָם They multiplied and they were strong. They were strong, very, very much. The land was filled with them. But the next pasuk says, וירעו אתנו מצרים And the Egyptians did evil to us." Why? What happened? What caused the change? They went from ' Lagur Sham,' to 'they're doing evil to us ?' The Maharal Diskin explains (based on Midrash Tanhuma Shemot letter six) that it says וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ אֹתָם / the land was full with them , meaning שנתמלאו בתי טרטיאות ובתי קרקסיאות מהם, מיד גזרו עליהם / The theaters and circuses were full of them. They were no longer in their ghetto of Goshen . The land was full of them means they no longer felt like they were immigrants and aliens. And מ יד / immediately, says the midrash, the decree came against them. But what's wrong with going to a theater and a circus? There was probably separate seating, and everything was kosher. And the answer is, it no longer qualifies as Galut. You are no longer humble. You feel you belong everywhere. We went everywhere. We were no longer in Goshen. We spread out all over the place. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch on Shemot 1,12 where it says ויקצו , says the Egyptians were disgusted with them . Why? Because wherever they went, Jews were there. When they went to the theater, there were Jews there, when they went to the circus, there were Jews there. But we don't belong there. It's like the private golf course that used to say, No Jews Allowed, and now they're there and everywhere . And we don't belong everywhere! That is the job of the host nation- to make us feel, Hey we don't belong here. I once heard a beautiful thought from Rav Elya Brudny. He asks, Why is it that if you're at the Bronx Zoo and some nice family is there on a Chol Hamoed trip, and the kids leave the ice cream wrappers on the floor, the people say, " Oh my gosh, look at those unruly people!" And they roll their eyes and snicker. But if some immigrant from another country does the same, they don't say anything. Why are we being held more accountable? He answered with a mashal : When you're in your own house, and you decide to leave your robe and pajamas on the floor in your bedroom, that's okay, It's your bedroom. You can do whatever you want. But if a guest walks in and leaves their shoes in the middle of your living room or whatever it may be, it's a little odd. What are they doing? They're a guest. They don't belong here. And the nimshal is, we don't belong here . The reason we can't do things that other people can do is that we don't belong here. This is Galut . We're only sojourners. And the job of Galut is to remind us to be humbled. The Sefer Aperion , a commentary on Chumash from the author of Kitzur Shulchan Aruch the says on the pasuk וַיִּרְבּוּ וַיַּעַצְמוּ they were strong, בִּמ ְאֹד מְאֹד /they were very powerful. What does it mean In Me'od Me'od And he says that when the Torah says in Devarim 6,5 ובכל מאודך Rashi, based on the Mishna says it means with all your money. So ויעצמו במאד means they became very wealthy . And when you become very wealthy, you now have a lot of capabilities. You're able to travel, you're able to do things. And that's when they started feeling overly comfortable. The Meshech Chochma tells us a beautiful, almost prophetic thought, written 10-20 before the Holocaust. In his commentary on Vayikra 26,44, he says, what happens in history is that the Jews go to a new country and after being there a little bit too much time, ישכח מחצבתו ויחשב לאזרח רענן, יעזוב לימודי דתו, ללמדו לשונות לא לו, יליף ממקלקלתא ולא יליף מתקנתא They forget where they came from. And they think of themselves as very comfortable citizens and they start to forget their religion. He was talking about the German Jews at that time, who were extremely cultured, and he said, יחשוב כי ברלין היא ירושלים /they think Berlin is like Jerusalem. And he says, when that happens, אז יבוא רוח סועה וסער, יעקור אותו מגזעו: /A tornado of a wind will come , and uproot them from where they're rooted . This is something that repeats itself. History repeats itself. And this is the history of Galut . As was once said, Those that do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. It was that way in the Spanish Inquisition. It was that way throughout the generations. Whenever the Jew forgot that he was a stranger, that he was a sojourner, they'd come and remind us that, as we started our class with, Galut is in the eye of the beholder , and the eye of the receiver. We must view ourselves as, I don't belong here, I'm a stranger. I have to keep a low profile and not demand anything because I'm a visitor. But once we start demanding, feeling, What about my rights? What about my xyz… it's a problem. Of course, we live in a democratic country, and we want to have rights, but we have to understand that deep down, this is not where we belong. And as long as we have that understanding, we can go back to a quiet, serene galut like Yitzhak Avinu's Galut . But once we start feeling, Hey, this is mine, the problems start. This is an important lesson in how to receive Galut and how to stay safe in Galut .
You really think this guy gets a job 40 days before the assassination, moving to Dallas from New Orleans and just happens to work in a high rise building right at the end of the motorcade rout that had an empty (meaning no people) room on the top floor?You'd have to say one of 3 things. Either he was part of a plan, was extremely well handled, or was a super rare coincidence.Think about it, a covert asset of ONI and CIA who could speak Russian and was certainly not lacking intelligence, moves to a new city to get a minimum wage job moving books. And then as testified by Roselli, he was shot so as to silence him.Remember what Hoover wrote Nov 24th 1963Why say the Real Assassin?”It is nteresting because Nick Katzenbach who Hoover is referring to, himself wrote the next day in a memo to Bill Moyer “THE PUBLIC MUST BE SATISFIED THAT OSWALD WAS THE ASSASSIN; THAT HE HAD NO CONFEDERATES WHO ARE STILL AT LARGE; AND THAT EVIDENCE WAS SUCH THAT HE WOULD HAVE BEEN CONVICTED AT TRIAL.””Jack Ruby, also a Jew, even told the warren commission he had to do it “because of his Jewish faith”and what was he talking about when he told Earl Warren“Unfortunately, Chief Earl Warren, had you been around 5 or 6 months ago, and I know your hands were tied, you couldn't do it, and immediately the President would have gotten a hold of my true story, or whatever would have been said about me, a certain organization wouldn't have so completely formed now, so powerfully, to use me because I am of the Jewish extraction, Jewish faith, to commit the most dastardly crime that has ever been committed. Can you understand now in visualizing what happened, what powers, what momentum has been carried on to create this feeling of mass feeling against my people, against certain people that were against them prior to their power?” That goes over your head doesn't it.…I want to say this to you. The Jewish people are being exterminated at this moment. Consequently, a whole new form of government is going to take over our country, and I know I won't live to see you another time. Do I sound sort of screwy–in telling you these things?… All I know is maybe something can be saved. Because right now, I want to tell you this, I am used as a scapegoat, and there is no greater weapon that you can use to create some falsehood about some of the Jewish faith, especially at the terrible heinous crime such as the killing of President Kennedy….Now maybe something can be saved. It may not be too late, whatever happens, if our President, Lyndon Johnson, knew the truth from me. But if I am eliminated, there won't be any way of knowing. Right now, when I leave your presence now, I am the only one that can bring out the truth to our President, who believes in righteousness and justice.”Note that later while talking to the press that Jack Ruby says the Truth may never come above board and that it goes all the way to the top. If LBJ isn't in the loop and at the top as it were, then who is he talking about?“But he has been told, I am certain, that I was part of a plot to assassinate the President…. I am sorry, Chief Justice Warren, I thought I would be very effective in telling you what I have said here. But in all fairness to everyone, maybe all I want to do is beg that if they found out I was telling the truth, maybe they can succeed in what their motives are, but maybe my people won't be tortured and mutilated. ….No; the only way you can do it is if he knows the truth, that I am telling the truth, and why I was down in that basement Sunday morning, and maybe some sense of decency will come out and they can still fulfill their plan, as I stated before, without my people going through torture and mutilation. …But I won't be around, Chief Justice. I won't be around to verify these things you are going to tell the President. … I have been used for a purpose, and there will be a certain tragic occurrence happening if you don't take my testimony and somehow vindicate me so my people don't suffer because of what I have done. …All I want is a lie detector test, and you refuse to give it to me. Because as it stands now—and the truth serum, and any other–Pentothal–how do you pronounce it, whatever it is. And they will not give it to me, because I want to tell the truth. And then I want to leave this world. But I don't want my people to be blamed for something that is untrue, that they claim has happened. “It seems that Jack Ruby is paranoid that the president has been told already that he was party of a plot to kill the president that that “his people” meaning Jewish people or the Israeli state was behind it. Israel had several motives to want both JFK and RFK dead. It was in their eye a matter of survival.1 The Kennedys want Israel inspected for nuclear weapons. RFK also had information and testing done around Dimona showing the Uranium there had come from the US's Nautilus project, since it was the only uranium in the world enriched to that high a % at that point in time. It was all over the area.2 The Kennedys supported Palestinians right of Return.3 They wanted Israel's foreign lobbies to register as foreign agents4 JFK along with France's Charles de Gaulle who also survived an assassination attempt, supported Algeria independence.The John Birch Society, who Ruby tries to paint a picture of as all powerful, didn't kill the President. As much as big oil was tied to LBJ, and Texas oil man David Harold Byrd owning the building where Lee Harvey Oswald worked, they didn't control Jack Ruby nor did they gain anything worth the risk when RFK was assassinated in California. Guys like David Ferrie and Jacob Rubenstein were working for the Mafia. And the Mafia lost a billion dollars in revenue when Castro shut down the casinos. They had every reason to work with the CIA when they came knocking and they did, and the CIA had every reason to seek plausible deniability that the mafia provided for a variety of illegal activities, from narcotic and gun running to assassination. The CIA's Victor Marchetti testified that Ferrie worked for the CIA.Jack Ruby was a central mafia figure and knew almost every cop in Dallas. He also went the Cuba and even rode with FBN agents to the airport. So was Oswald's childhood friend and fellow closet f****t Efraim Sullivan, who became a chief of police in Louisiana and got 4 cops killed as well as 5 civilians all in one shooting. According to his son he work for the Mossad. These southern mafia heads guys were bragging about JFK AND Robert getting killed before both happened. The Kennedys demanded the ZAC/ZOA/AIPAC register as a foreign agent. RFK issued them a moratorium with 72 hrs to comply in November of 63. The PM resigned over it to stall for time and Kennedy was killed the same month.The mafia was the CIA's plausible deniability and ground distribution network for narcotics which is how they were covertly financing anti communist resistance in Cuba, China, and USSR. Vietnam's opium was a natural market move as Europe was recovered from WWII. RFK was prosecuting the same mob leaders who the CIA was secretly working with to sell drugs and even attempt to assassinate Castro. Think back to the CIA's earliest operations in the Middle East, operation Ajax and the Suez Crisis, which was itself the product of a botched 1956 Israel false flag operation, Operation Suzanna, now commonly called the Lavon Affair. As a Senator, Johnson blocked the Eisenhower administration's attempts to apply sanctions against Israel following the 1956 Sinai Campaign. Who did these CIA operation in Iran and Egypt really benefit? Not the United States. But of course both Dulles brothers were hardcore Zionists. Bobby was killed on the first anniversary of the six day war and set up a Palestinian. Now who would want to do that?The plan was to replace him with Katzenbach, which LBJ did. And none of it could move until JFK was out of the way. The mob lost a billion dollars a year in gambling revenue when Castro shut down casinos. Hoffa using teamster pension funds to create Las Vegas as the new Cuba was in reaction to this. These are the guys who end up in a series of murders for or before finishing testimony to the House Committee on assassination. Giancana had been Ruby's boss. Trafficante had him killed.The Jewish finger prints are all over both assassinations. Johnson's domestic and foreign policies on Cuba on Russia on Vietnam didn't really change. Kennedy was not getting out of Vietnam. This is wishful thinking on par with the fools who thought Obama was going to be an antiwar president. JFK had already procured 6 billion dollars, most of it left over from Eisenhower who had had enough of the MIC, to spent on the F111 fighter jet. Oh it is interesting that the Crown family benefited when Johnson lobbied to have the contract go to General Dynamics. They also married into the family who owned the hotel where Bobby was shot and allowed Jewish mobsters to use it for gambling operations. It was Henry Crown's personal lawyer Albert E Jenner, who was appointed by Johnson and to be part of the Warren Commission whitewash, was hired to look into the backgrounds of the two most important individuals, Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Of course he found no intelligence ties or mob ties. Jenner was also a director for general Dynamics. Reading the biographies given for these men by the WC and comparing them to the mountains of information we have now is enough to make even the most crooked lawyer blush. Jack Ruby's first jail visitor was the mob boss of Dallas.The only dramatic changes under LBJ were on his Middle East policy. He had Americans killed! About the USS Liberty which the Israelis attacked in the Six Day War, LBJ told Admiral Lawrence Geis “I dont care if that ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean.” LBJ stacked his admin with Zionists and the US has never recovered. Israel kept it nukes, Palestinians never got right of return, (it was never even brought up again) the lobbies never registered as foreign agents, and America as subsidized the racist apartheid state with billions every year from then to now. Of Course Johnson didn't want the ZOA (Zionist Organization of America) to be registered as a foreign lobby. His aunt, Jessie Johnson was on it! Few people know that according to Jewish law, LBJ was himself Jewish. His mother was Rebekah Baines, thus Johnson's middle name. She was Jewish. Her mother was Ruth Ament Huffman, and her mother was Mary Elizabeth Perrin all of whom were Jewish. Perrin's husband was John S. Huffman whose mother was Suzanne Ament, thus Ruth's Middle name. Ament was a German Jew. The Huffman's settled in Fredrick Maryland and from there went to Kentucky and finally Texas. The Jewish times brags ” The line of Jewish mothers can be traced back three generations in Lyndon Johnson's family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish.” Regardless there is no doubt that LBJ was a Zionist and put Israel's needs first. Writing that list would take a long time.On November 21, 1963, a government informant named Thomas Mosley was negotiating the sale of machine guns to a Cuban exile named Echevarria. In the course of the transaction, Echevarria said that “we now have plenty of money – our new backers are Jews” and would close the arms deal “as soon as we [or they] take care of Kennedy.” The next day, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.You wont see that in Oliver Stone's film on JFK of course the Executive producer of that film was Arnon Milchan, Israel's largest arms dealer. It is unfortunate but many laymen JFK researcher use that film as their initiation.Echevarria's words are often associated with the Mocone -Rowley memo. CD 498 [Rowley memorandum| which does reference it. It goes on to explain how the conversation was interrupted by other bus drivers. The follow up interview with the informant is of course classified.Furthermore this adds. “I further told Mr Johnson that the informant had worked with us in a recent counterfeiting Case and had proved to be reliable.”However the primary source is a Secret Service ReportSpecial Agent Joseph E Noonan.What is the Jewish (mafia/state) doing mixed up with anti-Castro Cuban exiles who were illegally buying arms? And why isn't this pre Kennedy assassination foreknowledge more well known? Oh but you see it is, only the Jews part is usually removed. I don't think researchers should omit this just to be Politically Correct. The international angle and Johnson's deep ties with Israel and Israel's motives to kill not only JFK but RFK as well, is seldom explored. Stone's movie doesn't even mention middle eastern policy or Israel and instead focuses on the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam. I think enough eyeballs have been over every inch of those theories for over 5 decades. I have a working theory that cleanly ties both assassinations together. But I am censored on everything.How Israel stole the bomb and killed JFKI need you to subscribe, it is just $6 a month less if you sign up for a year. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ryandawson.org/subscribe
Diana Mara Henry and Gabe Scheinmann join the show to discuss the new book I Am André: German Jew, French Resistance Fighter, British Spy, which charts the astonishing, brave, and tragic World War II career of ‘André' Joseph Scheinmann. ▪️ Times • 01:50 Introduction • 03:01 The story of a fighter • 09:26 Born in Munich • 11:87 Citizen without a country • 17:08 Liaison to the High Command • 21:46 MI6 • 25:20 Spycraft • 30:27 London and capture • 36:31 Interrogation • 42:52 Max and Regina • 46:40 Natzweiler • 52:29 Dachau • 55:30 America • 01:01:17 “Jews as fighters” Follow along on Instagram or YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today's episode on our School of War Substack
OA1108 - A Coup in Search of a Legal Theory We commemorate the fourth anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection by remembering the two elite lawyers who bear significant personal, moral, and legal responsibility for one of the single worst days in US political history. The bad-faith legal cover Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman provided for the “Stop the Steal” movement in the months leading up to MAGA's violent insurrection would ultimately result in nine deaths, hundreds of injuries, and the initiation of more than 1500 federal criminal cases--but Eastman and his MAGA allies are already trying to rewrite that history in front of us. We push back in this special episode, with more to come. SS chief Reinhart Heydrich's official memo authorizing and regulating the Kristallnacht “demonstrations” targeting the property of German Jews (11/10/1938) January 6th House Select Committee's final report (and supporting evidence) Fake elector records submitted to the National Archives (via FOIA by American Oversight) Cleta Mitchell email requesting that John Eastman write a memo for a “movement” which needs “Constitutional support” (11/5/20) John Eastman's first “draft” memo (12/24/20) John Eastman's second memo (early 2021) Kenneth Cheseboro's NY disbarment ruling (10/31/24) Record of John Eastman CA disbarment proceedings Kenneth Cheseboro December 9, 2020 memo John Eastman's speech at January 6, 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally Jack Smith's Motion for Immunity Determination (with complete supporting brief) in Trump v. US outlining all of the many ways that Trump knew there was no fraud in the 2020 election and the entire fake elector scheme DC federal indictment of Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election (8/1/2023) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! If you'd like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!
German Jews in Love: A History (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the dynamic role of love in German-Jewish lives, from the birth of the German Empire in the 1870s, to the 1970s, a generation after the Shoah. During a remarkably turbulent hundred-year period when German Jews experienced five political regimes, rapid urbanization, transformations in gender relations, and war and genocide, the romantic ideals of falling in love and marrying for love helped German Jews to develop a new sense of self. Appeals to romantic love were also significant in justifying relationships between Jews and non-Jews, even when those unions created conflict within and between communities. By incorporating novel approaches from the history of emotions and life-cycle history, Christian Bailey moves beyond existing research into the sexual and racial politics of modern Germany and approaches a new frontier in the study of subjectivity and the self. German Jews in Love draws on a rich array of sources, from newspapers and love letters to state and other official records. Calling on this evidence, Bailey shows the ways German Jews' romantic relationships reveal an aspect of acculturation that has been overlooked: how deeply cultural scripts worked their way into emotions; those most intimate and seemingly pre-political aspects of German-Jewish subjectivity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
German Jews in Love: A History (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the dynamic role of love in German-Jewish lives, from the birth of the German Empire in the 1870s, to the 1970s, a generation after the Shoah. During a remarkably turbulent hundred-year period when German Jews experienced five political regimes, rapid urbanization, transformations in gender relations, and war and genocide, the romantic ideals of falling in love and marrying for love helped German Jews to develop a new sense of self. Appeals to romantic love were also significant in justifying relationships between Jews and non-Jews, even when those unions created conflict within and between communities. By incorporating novel approaches from the history of emotions and life-cycle history, Christian Bailey moves beyond existing research into the sexual and racial politics of modern Germany and approaches a new frontier in the study of subjectivity and the self. German Jews in Love draws on a rich array of sources, from newspapers and love letters to state and other official records. Calling on this evidence, Bailey shows the ways German Jews' romantic relationships reveal an aspect of acculturation that has been overlooked: how deeply cultural scripts worked their way into emotions; those most intimate and seemingly pre-political aspects of German-Jewish subjectivity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
German Jews in Love: A History (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the dynamic role of love in German-Jewish lives, from the birth of the German Empire in the 1870s, to the 1970s, a generation after the Shoah. During a remarkably turbulent hundred-year period when German Jews experienced five political regimes, rapid urbanization, transformations in gender relations, and war and genocide, the romantic ideals of falling in love and marrying for love helped German Jews to develop a new sense of self. Appeals to romantic love were also significant in justifying relationships between Jews and non-Jews, even when those unions created conflict within and between communities. By incorporating novel approaches from the history of emotions and life-cycle history, Christian Bailey moves beyond existing research into the sexual and racial politics of modern Germany and approaches a new frontier in the study of subjectivity and the self. German Jews in Love draws on a rich array of sources, from newspapers and love letters to state and other official records. Calling on this evidence, Bailey shows the ways German Jews' romantic relationships reveal an aspect of acculturation that has been overlooked: how deeply cultural scripts worked their way into emotions; those most intimate and seemingly pre-political aspects of German-Jewish subjectivity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies
German Jews in Love: A History (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the dynamic role of love in German-Jewish lives, from the birth of the German Empire in the 1870s, to the 1970s, a generation after the Shoah. During a remarkably turbulent hundred-year period when German Jews experienced five political regimes, rapid urbanization, transformations in gender relations, and war and genocide, the romantic ideals of falling in love and marrying for love helped German Jews to develop a new sense of self. Appeals to romantic love were also significant in justifying relationships between Jews and non-Jews, even when those unions created conflict within and between communities. By incorporating novel approaches from the history of emotions and life-cycle history, Christian Bailey moves beyond existing research into the sexual and racial politics of modern Germany and approaches a new frontier in the study of subjectivity and the self. German Jews in Love draws on a rich array of sources, from newspapers and love letters to state and other official records. Calling on this evidence, Bailey shows the ways German Jews' romantic relationships reveal an aspect of acculturation that has been overlooked: how deeply cultural scripts worked their way into emotions; those most intimate and seemingly pre-political aspects of German-Jewish subjectivity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
German Jews in Love: A History (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the dynamic role of love in German-Jewish lives, from the birth of the German Empire in the 1870s, to the 1970s, a generation after the Shoah. During a remarkably turbulent hundred-year period when German Jews experienced five political regimes, rapid urbanization, transformations in gender relations, and war and genocide, the romantic ideals of falling in love and marrying for love helped German Jews to develop a new sense of self. Appeals to romantic love were also significant in justifying relationships between Jews and non-Jews, even when those unions created conflict within and between communities. By incorporating novel approaches from the history of emotions and life-cycle history, Christian Bailey moves beyond existing research into the sexual and racial politics of modern Germany and approaches a new frontier in the study of subjectivity and the self. German Jews in Love draws on a rich array of sources, from newspapers and love letters to state and other official records. Calling on this evidence, Bailey shows the ways German Jews' romantic relationships reveal an aspect of acculturation that has been overlooked: how deeply cultural scripts worked their way into emotions; those most intimate and seemingly pre-political aspects of German-Jewish subjectivity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies
pWotD Episode 2764: The Holocaust Welcome to Popular Wiki of the Day, spotlighting Wikipedia's most visited pages, giving you a peek into what the world is curious about today.With 1,336,090 views on Monday, 25 November 2024 our article of the day is The Holocaust.The Holocaust ( , HAW-lə-kawst) was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno in occupied Poland. Separate Nazi persecutions killed a similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to refer to the persecution of these other groups.The Nazis developed their ideology based on racism and pursuit of "living space", and seized power in early 1933. Meant to force all German Jews to emigrate, regardless of means, the regime passed anti-Jewish laws, encouraged harassment, and orchestrated a nationwide pogrom in November 1938. After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, occupation authorities began to establish ghettos to segregate Jews. Following the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, 1.5 to 2 million Jews were shot by German forces and local collaborators.Later in 1941 or early 1942, the highest levels of the German government decided to murder all Jews in Europe. Victims were deported by rail to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were killed with poison gas. Other Jews continued to be employed in forced labor camps where many died from starvation, abuse, exhaustion, or being used as test subjects in deadly medical experiments. Although many Jews tried to escape, surviving in hiding was difficult due to factors such as the lack of money to pay helpers and the risk of denunciation. The property, homes, and jobs belonging to murdered Jews were redistributed to the German occupiers and other non-Jews. Although the majority of Holocaust victims died in 1942, the killing continued at a lower rate until the end of the war in May 1945. Many Jewish survivors emigrated outside of Europe after the war. A few Holocaust perpetrators faced criminal trials. Billions of dollars in reparations have been paid, although falling short of the Jews' losses. The Holocaust has also been commemorated in museums, memorials, and culture. It has become central to Western historical consciousness as a symbol of the ultimate human evil.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:57 UTC on Tuesday, 26 November 2024.For the full current version of the article, see The Holocaust on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Emma.
Actress, comedian and writer Corinne Britti currently co-stars as real-life 70s comedienne Valri Bromfield in the Sony biographical comedy Saturday Night from writer, director Jason Reitman opening on Oct 11. She also stars as Leyna Rahn, an escaped German Jew who turns Nazi hunter in writer/director Phil Blattenberger's action-thriller Condor's Nest, and she's Claire, a dry-witted medium who is hired to exorcize a house in writer/director Christopher Schrack's horror comedy For Sale. James Lott Jr has a fun chat with her. IG @corinnestagramster
Send us a textActress, comedian and writer Corinne Britti currently co-stars as real-life 70s comedienne Valri Bromfield in Sony biographical comedy Saturday Night from writer, director Jason Reitman. She also stars as Leyna Rahn, an escaped German Jew who turns Nazi hunter in writer/director Phil Blattenberger's action-thriller Condor's Nest, and she's Claire, a dry-witted medium who is hired to exorcize a house in writer/director Christopher Schrack's horror comedy For Sale. Corinne contributed to the original story, produced and starred in the award-winning drama, Take Care of Emily, from writer-director and frequent collaborator Nick Rapuano. Her first summer out of college, Corinne won the role of Marie DiNello in Rapuano's drama Route 80, which marked her feature film debut. Along with performing standup and sketch, Corinne also produced and co-hosted Almost Therapy, an acclaimed and long-running live comedy show in Brooklyn, New York, which featured both standup performances and a live Q & A with a mental health professional. Born in Washington D.C., Corinne credits her first high school drama performances with giving her the bug to seek an acting career. She received her Bachelor's degree in drama from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, including studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for Shakespeare, and the Stonestreet Film Conservatory. Corinne is a rabid sewer who, during the pandemic, helped craft the puppets (and stars) of Ice-T's award-winning music video for “The Hate Is Real.” Corrinne on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9072763/?ref_=nm_mv_closehttps://www.instagram.com/corinnestagramster/"Saturday Night" will be in theaters nationwide starting October 11, 2024"Condor's Nest" and "For Sale" can be found on TubeThanks again for tuning in- you can find our main website at www.fowlplayersradio.com with all of our episodes. Our most recent three seasons and some best of episodes in video format can be found at youtube.com/@fowlplayersradio. Please hit the like and subscribe button and leave an honest reviewPlease support our guests in their endeavors. Buying books, cds, t-shirts, and tickets to shows make great experiences as well as great gifts and greatly help keep these folks going. It is also very much appreciated by the artists.#michaelspedden #fowlplayersradio #fowlplayersofperryville #madiganswaterfront #westernmarylandscenicrailroad #5thcompanybrewing #suskyriverbeveragecompany #marylandpartyboat #Saturdaynight #condorsnest #corrinebritti #forsalewww.fowlplayersradio.comwww.thefowlplayersofperryville.com#michaelspedden#fowlplayersradio#fowlplayersofperryville@fowl_radio@SpeddenMichaelwww.youtube.com/@fowlplayersradiowww.patreon.com/fowlplayersradiobuymeacoffee.com/fowlplayerw
This week we discuss the role of RAF bomber aircraft as glider tugs in the Arnhem airlift and airborne operations. We're joined by Matt Yates, the Chief Operations Officer for the Vickers Machine Gun Collection and Research Association, and owner of the Chalk Glider Pilot Regiment Collection.Matt provides insight into the formation of the Glider Pilot Regiment, highlighting the close collaboration between glider pilots, and their tug crews, who were normally seconded from Bomber Squadrons. We debate the challenges and successes of various airborne operations, including Operations Freshman, Husky, and Tonga.We go on to discuss Operation Market Garden - a complex and ambitious plan to secure a foothold in Germany by capturing key bridges in the Netherlands and paving the way for a rapid advance into Germany. However, the operation faced challenges, including the loss of the element of surprise, intelligence issues, overconfidence, and a shortage of aircraft. The glider pilot regiment and their bomber crew tugs played a crucial role in transporting troops and supplies, but faced heavy anti-aircraft fire and suffered significant casualties. We also discuss the supply role of transport command. The operation ultimately fell short of its objectives, highlighting the difficulties and risks of large-scale airborne operations.Links:Arnhem: Myth & Reality, by Sebastian RitchieJane's article: Bring Up The Piat!Matt's recommendations:Glider Pilots at Arnhem by Mike Peters and Luuk Buist. Arnhem Lift by Louis Hagen (a German Jew who fled Germany and joined the British Army) The History of the Glider Pilot Regiment by Claude Smith. Arnhem by Martin Middlebrook. A Noble Pair of Brothers by Wing Commander DH Wood. Gives a full historySend us a textSupport the showPlease subscribe to Never Mind The Dambusters wherever you get your podcasts. You can support the show, and help us produce great content, by becoming a paid subscriber from just $3 a month here https://www.buzzsprout.com/2327200/support . Supporters receive invitations to participate in our recording sessions as an audience member. Thank you for listening! You can reach out to us on social media at @RAF_BomberPod (X) or @NeverMindTheDambusters (Instagram)You can find out about James' research, articles, lectures and podcasts here .You can read more about Jane's work on her website at https://www.justcuriousjane.com/, and listen to podcasts/media stuff here
Subscriber-only episode* PUBLIC RELEASE ON 11 SEPTEMBER 2024This week we discuss the role of RAF bomber aircraft as glider tugs in the Arnhem airlift and airborne operations. We're joined by Matt Yates, the Chief Operations Officer for the Vickers Machine Gun Collection and Research Association, and owner of the Chalk Glider Pilot Regiment Collection.Matt provides insight into the formation of the Glider Pilot Regiment, highlighting the close collaboration between glider pilots, and their tug crews, who were normally seconded from Bomber Squadrons. We debate the challenges and successes of various airborne operations, including Operations Freshman, Husky, and Tonga. We go on to discuss Operation Market Garden - a complex and ambitious plan to secure a foothold in Germany by capturing key bridges in the Netherlands and paving the way for a rapid advance into Germany. However, the operation faced challenges, including the loss of the element of surprise, intelligence issues, overconfidence, and a shortage of aircraft. The glider pilot regiment and their bomber crew tugs played a crucial role in transporting troops and supplies, but faced heavy anti-aircraft fire and suffered significant casualties. We also discuss the supply role of transport command. The operation ultimately fell short of its objectives, highlighting the difficulties and risks of large-scale airborne operations.Links: Arnhem: Myth & Reality, by Sebastian Ritchie Jane's article: Bring Up The Piat! Matt's recommendations: Glider Pilots at Arnhem by Mike Peters and Luuk Buist. Arnhem Lift by Louis Hagen (a German Jew who fled Germany and joined the British Army) The History of the Glider Pilot Regiment by Claude Smith. Arnhem by Martin Middlebrook. A Noble Pair of BrotSend us a textPlease subscribe to Never Mind The Dambusters wherever you get your podcasts. You can support the show, and help us produce great content, by becoming a paid subscriber from just $3 a month here https://www.buzzsprout.com/2327200/support . Supporters receive invitations to participate in our recording sessions as an audience member. Thank you for listening! You can reach out to us on social media at @RAF_BomberPod (X) or @NeverMindTheDambusters (Instagram)You can find out about James' research, articles, lectures and podcasts here .You can read more about Jane's work on her website at https://www.justcuriousjane.com/, and listen to podcasts/media stuff here
In the years following Hitler's rise to power, German Jews faced increasingly restrictive antisemitic laws, and many responded by fleeing to more tolerant countries. Cities of Refuge: German Jews in London and New York, 1935-1945 (SUNY Press, 2019), compares the experiences of Jewish refugees who immigrated to London and New York City by analyzing letters, diaries, newspapers, organizational documents, and oral histories. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler examines institutions, neighborhoods, employment, language use, name changes, dress, family dynamics, and domestic life in these two cities to determine why immigrants in London adopted local customs more quickly than those in New York City, yet identified less as British than their counterparts in the United States did as American. By highlighting a disparity between integration and identity formation, Gemeiner-Bihler challenges traditional theories of assimilation and provides a new framework for the study of refugees and migration. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler is Associate Professor of History at Framingham State University. Robin Buller is a Doctoral Candidate in History at UNC Chapel Hill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In the years following Hitler's rise to power, German Jews faced increasingly restrictive antisemitic laws, and many responded by fleeing to more tolerant countries. Cities of Refuge: German Jews in London and New York, 1935-1945 (SUNY Press, 2019), compares the experiences of Jewish refugees who immigrated to London and New York City by analyzing letters, diaries, newspapers, organizational documents, and oral histories. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler examines institutions, neighborhoods, employment, language use, name changes, dress, family dynamics, and domestic life in these two cities to determine why immigrants in London adopted local customs more quickly than those in New York City, yet identified less as British than their counterparts in the United States did as American. By highlighting a disparity between integration and identity formation, Gemeiner-Bihler challenges traditional theories of assimilation and provides a new framework for the study of refugees and migration. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler is Associate Professor of History at Framingham State University. Robin Buller is a Doctoral Candidate in History at UNC Chapel Hill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
In the years following Hitler's rise to power, German Jews faced increasingly restrictive antisemitic laws, and many responded by fleeing to more tolerant countries. Cities of Refuge: German Jews in London and New York, 1935-1945 (SUNY Press, 2019), compares the experiences of Jewish refugees who immigrated to London and New York City by analyzing letters, diaries, newspapers, organizational documents, and oral histories. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler examines institutions, neighborhoods, employment, language use, name changes, dress, family dynamics, and domestic life in these two cities to determine why immigrants in London adopted local customs more quickly than those in New York City, yet identified less as British than their counterparts in the United States did as American. By highlighting a disparity between integration and identity formation, Gemeiner-Bihler challenges traditional theories of assimilation and provides a new framework for the study of refugees and migration. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler is Associate Professor of History at Framingham State University. Robin Buller is a Doctoral Candidate in History at UNC Chapel Hill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
In the years following Hitler's rise to power, German Jews faced increasingly restrictive antisemitic laws, and many responded by fleeing to more tolerant countries. Cities of Refuge: German Jews in London and New York, 1935-1945 (SUNY Press, 2019), compares the experiences of Jewish refugees who immigrated to London and New York City by analyzing letters, diaries, newspapers, organizational documents, and oral histories. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler examines institutions, neighborhoods, employment, language use, name changes, dress, family dynamics, and domestic life in these two cities to determine why immigrants in London adopted local customs more quickly than those in New York City, yet identified less as British than their counterparts in the United States did as American. By highlighting a disparity between integration and identity formation, Gemeiner-Bihler challenges traditional theories of assimilation and provides a new framework for the study of refugees and migration. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler is Associate Professor of History at Framingham State University. Robin Buller is a Doctoral Candidate in History at UNC Chapel Hill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies
In the years following Hitler's rise to power, German Jews faced increasingly restrictive antisemitic laws, and many responded by fleeing to more tolerant countries. Cities of Refuge: German Jews in London and New York, 1935-1945 (SUNY Press, 2019), compares the experiences of Jewish refugees who immigrated to London and New York City by analyzing letters, diaries, newspapers, organizational documents, and oral histories. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler examines institutions, neighborhoods, employment, language use, name changes, dress, family dynamics, and domestic life in these two cities to determine why immigrants in London adopted local customs more quickly than those in New York City, yet identified less as British than their counterparts in the United States did as American. By highlighting a disparity between integration and identity formation, Gemeiner-Bihler challenges traditional theories of assimilation and provides a new framework for the study of refugees and migration. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler is Associate Professor of History at Framingham State University. Robin Buller is a Doctoral Candidate in History at UNC Chapel Hill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
In the years following Hitler's rise to power, German Jews faced increasingly restrictive antisemitic laws, and many responded by fleeing to more tolerant countries. Cities of Refuge: German Jews in London and New York, 1935-1945 (SUNY Press, 2019), compares the experiences of Jewish refugees who immigrated to London and New York City by analyzing letters, diaries, newspapers, organizational documents, and oral histories. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler examines institutions, neighborhoods, employment, language use, name changes, dress, family dynamics, and domestic life in these two cities to determine why immigrants in London adopted local customs more quickly than those in New York City, yet identified less as British than their counterparts in the United States did as American. By highlighting a disparity between integration and identity formation, Gemeiner-Bihler challenges traditional theories of assimilation and provides a new framework for the study of refugees and migration. Lori Gemeiner-Bihler is Associate Professor of History at Framingham State University. Robin Buller is a Doctoral Candidate in History at UNC Chapel Hill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies
rWotD Episode 2651: Kaaterskill Falls (novel) Welcome to Random Wiki of the Day, your journey through Wikipedia’s vast and varied content, one random article at a time.The random article for Tuesday, 6 August 2024 is Kaaterskill Falls (novel).Kaaterskill Falls is a 1998 novel by Allegra Goodman, set in a small Catskill Mountains, New York, USA, community of predominantly Orthodox Jews during summers in the mid-1970s. The location is based on the town of Tannersville, New York, where Goodman spent summers with her family. Like its fictional counterpart, Tannersville at the time was a summer home for the German Jews of Washington Heights, Manhattan.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:49 UTC on Tuesday, 6 August 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Kaaterskill Falls (novel) on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Aditi.
I live on a very ordinary suburban street - the sort of place you really wouldn't take any notice of as you drive past - with pebbledash houses, a storage centre and a supermarket at one end of the road, and a recreation ground at the other. On first look, it might seem rather sleepy - even a bit bland. But it is a place defined by migration. The people who live here come from an extraordinary array of places and migration has played a massive role in many of our lives in one way or another and (simply by living here and sharing this space) in all of our lives to some extent. Most of us know each other pretty well, and we have a street Whatsapp Group, so I invited everyone over for drinks earlier this month. The recording is a brief window into the very ordinary nature of my relationship with my very amazing neighbours. The guests who were present at the time of this recording include: My nextdoor neighbour to the left - who is a Chilean refugee, now in her 80s, who was a teacher in her earlier years. She fled the Pinochet regime with her husband (who sadly died earlier this year) in the 1970s: he had been a doctor specialising in respiratory diseases in Chile, but after relocating to the UK became a leading psychiatrist specialising in support for refugees. My neighbour to the right, now in her 90s, was also at the drinks, with her daughter. She and her husband (who also passed away earlier this year) were artists whose lives took them to live in Toronto, New York, India and Cornwall. One huge part of their lives involved driving their three young daughters to India in the 1960s to learn artisanal fabric printing techniques with Indian craftspeople, and the materials and ideas they subsequently imported back to the UK were hugely influential in late 1960s fashions - with Yoko Ono among people who wore their designs. Other visitors included: The young father whose family live opposite my house - they moved to the UK from China and their 8 month old baby is the newest arrival on the street. Another young couple - both economists from Italy - were there too with their baby, who is also under one year old, and their three year old daughter. From further down the street was a neighbour from Mexico, who pointed out that my Guacamole needed extra salt, and who is married to a British husband, and who has two teenage daughters. A Czech/German neighbour brought her daughter who spent hours playing with my dog. From all the way at the far end of the street was a Dutch artist, who occasionally taught my kids at their local secondary school, and who is married to a Flamenco guitarist who is very proud of his Romany heritage. Another guest is half-Austrian and his wife is half-Jamaican - their kids are now grown up, and used to babysit for mine - he has a very infectious (and loud) laugh. Several of our guests had not lived overseas, but are part of this friendly mix of people from all over. I also had a number of people who wanted to make it but could not - one is the son of one of the last children to arrive on the Kindertransport, evacuated from Nazi Germany, and his wife's father was part of the community of Jews expelled from Baghdad in the middle of the last century. Another is also the descendent of German Jews who fled the holocaust. A Bulgarian couple with a new baby who have recently moved to the street were invited too, but unable to come, and some of the students from down the road (from France, Spain and the US) were also unable to make it. As for me: I'm a returned migrant – I lived in the USA for a couple of years, but came back. My Granny on my mum's side was born and raised in Morocco, and my Father's family came from the Scottish Islands via Canada (for a couple of generations) to Liverpool and then Lancashire. Recorded by Rob McNeil. Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world's first collection of the sounds of human migration. For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration
In the 1920s, before the establishment of the state of Israel, a group of German Jews settled in a garden city on the outskirts of Jerusalem. During World War II, their quiet community, nicknamed Grunewald on the Orient, emerged as both an immigrant safe haven and a lively expatriate hotspot, welcoming many famous residents including poet-playwright Else Lasker-Schüler, historian Gershom Scholem, and philosopher Martin Buber. It was an idyllic setting, if fraught with unique tensions on the fringes of the long-divided holy city. After the war, despite the weight of the Shoah, the neighborhood miraculously repaired shattered bonds between German and Israeli residents. In German Jerusalem: The Remarkable Life of a German-Jewish Neighbourhood in the Holy City (Haus Publishers, 2021), Thomas Sparr opens up the history of this remarkable community and the forgotten borderland they called home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In the 1920s, before the establishment of the state of Israel, a group of German Jews settled in a garden city on the outskirts of Jerusalem. During World War II, their quiet community, nicknamed Grunewald on the Orient, emerged as both an immigrant safe haven and a lively expatriate hotspot, welcoming many famous residents including poet-playwright Else Lasker-Schüler, historian Gershom Scholem, and philosopher Martin Buber. It was an idyllic setting, if fraught with unique tensions on the fringes of the long-divided holy city. After the war, despite the weight of the Shoah, the neighborhood miraculously repaired shattered bonds between German and Israeli residents. In German Jerusalem: The Remarkable Life of a German-Jewish Neighbourhood in the Holy City (Haus Publishers, 2021), Thomas Sparr opens up the history of this remarkable community and the forgotten borderland they called home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
In the 1920s, before the establishment of the state of Israel, a group of German Jews settled in a garden city on the outskirts of Jerusalem. During World War II, their quiet community, nicknamed Grunewald on the Orient, emerged as both an immigrant safe haven and a lively expatriate hotspot, welcoming many famous residents including poet-playwright Else Lasker-Schüler, historian Gershom Scholem, and philosopher Martin Buber. It was an idyllic setting, if fraught with unique tensions on the fringes of the long-divided holy city. After the war, despite the weight of the Shoah, the neighborhood miraculously repaired shattered bonds between German and Israeli residents. In German Jerusalem: The Remarkable Life of a German-Jewish Neighbourhood in the Holy City (Haus Publishers, 2021), Thomas Sparr opens up the history of this remarkable community and the forgotten borderland they called home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies
In the 1920s, before the establishment of the state of Israel, a group of German Jews settled in a garden city on the outskirts of Jerusalem. During World War II, their quiet community, nicknamed Grunewald on the Orient, emerged as both an immigrant safe haven and a lively expatriate hotspot, welcoming many famous residents including poet-playwright Else Lasker-Schüler, historian Gershom Scholem, and philosopher Martin Buber. It was an idyllic setting, if fraught with unique tensions on the fringes of the long-divided holy city. After the war, despite the weight of the Shoah, the neighborhood miraculously repaired shattered bonds between German and Israeli residents. In German Jerusalem: The Remarkable Life of a German-Jewish Neighbourhood in the Holy City (Haus Publishers, 2021), Thomas Sparr opens up the history of this remarkable community and the forgotten borderland they called home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
In the 1920s, before the establishment of the state of Israel, a group of German Jews settled in a garden city on the outskirts of Jerusalem. During World War II, their quiet community, nicknamed Grunewald on the Orient, emerged as both an immigrant safe haven and a lively expatriate hotspot, welcoming many famous residents including poet-playwright Else Lasker-Schüler, historian Gershom Scholem, and philosopher Martin Buber. It was an idyllic setting, if fraught with unique tensions on the fringes of the long-divided holy city. After the war, despite the weight of the Shoah, the neighborhood miraculously repaired shattered bonds between German and Israeli residents. In German Jerusalem: The Remarkable Life of a German-Jewish Neighbourhood in the Holy City (Haus Publishers, 2021), Thomas Sparr opens up the history of this remarkable community and the forgotten borderland they called home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
In the 1920s, before the establishment of the state of Israel, a group of German Jews settled in a garden city on the outskirts of Jerusalem. During World War II, their quiet community, nicknamed Grunewald on the Orient, emerged as both an immigrant safe haven and a lively expatriate hotspot, welcoming many famous residents including poet-playwright Else Lasker-Schüler, historian Gershom Scholem, and philosopher Martin Buber. It was an idyllic setting, if fraught with unique tensions on the fringes of the long-divided holy city. After the war, despite the weight of the Shoah, the neighborhood miraculously repaired shattered bonds between German and Israeli residents. In German Jerusalem: The Remarkable Life of a German-Jewish Neighbourhood in the Holy City (Haus Publishers, 2021), Thomas Sparr opens up the history of this remarkable community and the forgotten borderland they called home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/israel-studies
Here is a stunning sentence for you, written by Lyndsey Stonebridge, our guest this hour, channeling the 20th-century political thinker and journalist Hannah Arendt: "Loneliness is the bully that coerces us into giving up on democracy." This conversation is a kind of guide to generative shared deliberations we might be having with each other and ourselves in this intensely fraught global political moment: on the human underlay that gives democracy its vigor or threatens to undo it; on the difference between facts and truth — and on the difference between violence and power. Krista interviewed Lyndsey once before, in 2017, after Hannah Arendt's classic work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, had become a belated runaway bestseller. Now Lyndsey has published her own wonderful book offering her and Arendt's full prescient wisdom for this time. What emerges is elevating and exhilaratingly thoughtful — while also brimming with helpful, practicable words and ideas. We have, in Lyndsey's phrase, "un-homed" ourselves. And yet we are always defined by our capacity to give birth to something new — and so to partake again and again in the deepest meaning of freedom.Hannah Arendt's other epic books include The Human Condition, and Eichmann in Jerusalem, in which she famously coined the phrase "the banality of evil." She was born a German Jew in 1906, fled Nazi Germany and spent many years as a stateless person, and died an American citizen in 1975. This conversation with Lyndsey Stonebridge happened in January 2024, as part of a gathering of visionaries, activists, and creatives across many fields. Krista interviewed her alongside Lucas Johnson, a former leader of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation who now leads our social healing initiatives at The On Being Project.Lyndsey Stonebridge is a Professor of Humanities and Human Rights at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. Her 2024 book is We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt's Lessons in Love and Disobedience. Her other books include Placeless People: Writings, Rights, and Refugees. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.Lucas Johnson is Executive Vice President of Public Life & Social Healing at The On Being Project. He was previously a leader of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, the world's oldest interfaith peace organization.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.______Sign up for The Pause — a Saturday morning companion newsletter to the On Being podcast season, and news and invitations all year round. Be the first to know as tickets go on sale for the On Being 2025 live national conversation tour.
This episode is part of the Amerikazentrum's ChicagoHamburg30 series, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City partnership. Happy Jewish American Heritage Month! In this episode, we explore the rich and complex history of Jewish Chicago, from the 1850s to the present. Topics include the following: -the first Jewish settlers and politicians in Chicago -the influence of German high-culture and Enlightenment philosophy on German Jews in Chicago -the formation of Jewish regimental companies in the Civil War -the second wave of Jewish immigrants and the tensions between establishment Jews and the new arrivals -World War I and the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924 -Prohibition and the rise of the Jewish gangster -the role of Word War II and the Holocaust in unifying the disparate Jewish communities -protests against the German American Bund -the transformation of the suburb of Lawndale into German Jewish "Deutschland" -further immigration trends from the post-Soviet nations as well as Israel Throughout, you will learn about famous Jewish Chicagoans, such as Henry Greenebaum, Dankmar Adler, Edward Solomon, Hannah Shapiro, Joseph Schaffner, and Julius Rosenwald. Our expert guests are Dr. Tobias Brinkmann (Penn State University) and Dr. Joe Kraus (University of Scranton).
In this episode, Naomi Sunshine, a director in the Public Interest Law Center and Supervising Attorney in the Immigrants Right Clinic at NYU Law School, discusses the process of reclaiming German citizenship under Article 116 Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law, which provides for the restoration of German citizenship to former German citizens deprived of their German citizenship due to “political, racial, or religious grounds” in the time period from January 30, 1933 to May 8, 1945, and their descendants. One of the primary purposes of Article 116 was to restore the German citizenship of denaturalized German Jews. Sunshine describes her family story and explains the process of applying for German citizenship under section 116. She also describes the experience of becoming a German citizen. Here is a link to the application for German citizenship under Article 116.This episode was hosted by Brian L. Frye, Spears-Gilbert Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky College of Law. Frye is on Twitter at @brianlfrye. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Balkans provided the escape route for tens of thousands of German Jews, and remained a place of refuge until the Nazis brutally shut it off with the mass murder of Jewish refugees on the so-called Kladovo transport starting in September 1941, which can be considered as the beginning of the Holocaust in Europe. Responding to publications about the Western European and American exile experience of the Jews after 1933, Bojan Aleksov's book Jewish Refugees in the Balkans, 1933-1945 (Brill, 2023) offers comparative insights into the less trodden paths of the persecuted, illuminating the cultural and political context of the Balkan host countries, the response of local Jewish communities, and the reactions of common people and assorted criminals. The Balkans, often marginalized and loathed, emerges in hundreds of personal accounts of survivors gathered here, supplemented by extensive archival research, as a welcoming getaway, where thousands survived thanks to the Italian occupiers, illiterate peasants, and Communist-led Partisan resisters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
The Balkans provided the escape route for tens of thousands of German Jews, and remained a place of refuge until the Nazis brutally shut it off with the mass murder of Jewish refugees on the so-called Kladovo transport starting in September 1941, which can be considered as the beginning of the Holocaust in Europe. Responding to publications about the Western European and American exile experience of the Jews after 1933, Bojan Aleksov's book Jewish Refugees in the Balkans, 1933-1945 (Brill, 2023) offers comparative insights into the less trodden paths of the persecuted, illuminating the cultural and political context of the Balkan host countries, the response of local Jewish communities, and the reactions of common people and assorted criminals. The Balkans, often marginalized and loathed, emerges in hundreds of personal accounts of survivors gathered here, supplemented by extensive archival research, as a welcoming getaway, where thousands survived thanks to the Italian occupiers, illiterate peasants, and Communist-led Partisan resisters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
Henry Kissinger's death. On Wednesday, Henry Kissinger, the long-time American diplomat and political scientist who was the only person to ever serve concurrently as both secretary of state and national security adviser, died at the age of 100. Kissinger, who was born in Bavaria in 1923 to a family of German Jews who fled to the United States during the rise of the Nazis, was one of the most polarizing figures in American history. He served under presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, though he advised 12 presidents from both parties — more than a quarter of all men who have ever held the office. You can read today's podcast here, our “Under the Radar” story here and here, and today's “Have a nice day” story here. You can also check out our latest video, an interview with Chloé Valdary here. Today's clickables: A couple of announcements (0:47), Quick hits (2:53), Today's story (4:52), Left's take (8:17), Right's take (11:56), Isaac's take (15:49), Listener question (22:04), Under the Radar (25:14), Numbers (26:08), Have a nice day (27:01) You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the poll. What do you think about Henry Kissinger's legacy? Let us know! Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message
I had the great pleasure and honor this week(and next week) to speak with the author of the new book Time's Echo Jeremy Eichler. The book chronicles four composers and their varied reactions to World War II and the Holocaust, including Schoenberg, Strauss, Shostakovich, and Britten. This week we talked about the historical symbiosis between Germans and German Jews, the concept of Bildung, a central idea in German culture throughout the 19th and early 20th century, Mendelssohn's role in creating a sense of "German" music, Schoenberg's remarkable prescience about what lay in the future after the Nazis took power in Germany, his remarkable Survivor from Warsaw, the first major musical memorial to the Holocaust, and the almost hard to believe it's so wild story of the premiere of the piece. This is truly one of my favorite books about classical music that I've ever read, so I highly recommend picking it up. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did!