The Holocaust History Podcast
The Holocaust History Podcast features engaging conversations with a diverse group of guests on all elements of the Holocaust. Whether you are new to the topic or come with prior knowledge, you will learn something new.
Ep. 84- The French Catholic Church and the Holocaust with Aliza Luft
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Many historians have sought to tell the story of the Catholic Church and its behavior during the Holocaust and explain its responses. They have approached it from a variety of perspectives from high-level political histories to low-level studies of rescuers.
On this episode, I talk with Aliza Luft about her in-depth study of the French Catholic Church and its interactions with the Jewish community. It a really interesting converations about the limits of human morality and personal courage but also about the complexities of history.
Luft, Al...
Ep. 83- A Family History of the Holocaust in Yugoslavia with Julie Brill
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We often hear on this podcast about how historians have sought to recover the past but what is it like trying to do this when you are not a professional? In this episode, I talked with Julie Brill about her personal and family journey toward uncovering her father's Holocaust history in Yugoslavia.
We talk about memory, the journey of researching family history, and what it means to be a 2nd generation survivor.
Julie Brill is an author and doula.
Brill, Julie. Hidden in Plain Si...
Ep. 82- Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto with Elizabeth Hyman
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In Holocaust history much like history in general, women's voices and experiences have often been overlooked or ignored. In this episode, I talk with an author who has focused on bringing those experiences to light.
We talk about the actions of a number of young Jewish women in the Warsaw Ghetto resistance, both during the uprising itself but also before. From traveling in disguise across occupied Poland to smuggling weapons to leading fighting groups. Elizabeth Hyman documents their remarkable contributions to resisting the Nazis.
Elizabeth Hyman is...
Ep. 81- Vicarious Trauma at Holocaust Museums with Julie Golding
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HAve you encountered material on the Holocaust that you find disturbing or upsetting? Was it in your reading or at a Holocaust site or museum? In this episode, I talk with Julie Golding about the challenges of presenting such material in Holocaust education and at Holocaust museums.
How shoudl museums address the emotional wellbeing of their visitors? What kinds of content is appropriate (and how do you decide?). We talk about these and many other issues in our conversation.
Julie J. Golding is a Holocaust educator, mus...
Ep. 80- Jewish Revenge and the Holocaust with Laura Jockusch
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Even as the Holocaust was ongoing, some Jews dreamed of and sought revenge for Nazi attacks on them. Ironically, the Nazis themselves believed in a particularly antisemitic myth of Jewish vengeance and many Germans after the war feared widespread retaliation by Holocaust survivors. Indeed, there were some attempts to carry out revenge attacks on Nazis after the war.
In this episode, I talked with Laura Jockusch about what revenge meant in all these contexts and more, including in the popular imagination with media like Inglourious Basterds and The Hunters.
...
Ep. 79- The Nazi Occult with Eric Kurlander
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There are lots of popular and sensationalist accounts of the Nazi obsession with the supernatural and occult, but what is the true history of this. The truth is that various kinds of supernatural, occult, and border scientific beliefs influenced many of the leading Nazis.
In addition, these beliefs also ultimately provided a contextual background that influenced Nazi policy. This is one of the reasons that these fringe and often outlandish beliefs are so important. In this episode, I talk with Eric Kurlander about his detailed and scholarly exploration of the Nazi sup...
Ep. 78- Polish Mayors and the Holocaust with Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe
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The Holocaust was a Nazi project, but it required the support, cooperation, complicity, and sometimes collaboration of a wide variety of non-Germans to carry out. This complicity took a variety of forms and investigating it always generates strong emotional reaction.
In this episode, I talk with Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe about his meticulous study of the role Polish mayors played under Nazi occupation and during the Holocaust. It's a difficult but important conversation.
Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe is a Lecturer in History at the Frei Universität, Berlin.
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Ep. 77- The Clemency and Paroling of Nazi War Criminals with Robert Hutchinson
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The Nuremberg trials, though not perfect, represented in many ways an epic achievement in justice for crimes against humanity. However, a darker and lesser-known element of the trials is what happened to the convicted Nazis after ward.
The overwhelming majority of sentences were never fully carried out and almost all those convicted at Nuremberg and in its subsequent trials especially were out of prison by 1958.
In this episode, I talk with Robert Hutchinson about his fascinating work on the US policy of releasing Nazi criminals from prison.
Ep. 76- The Janowska camp with Waitman Wade Beorn and special guest host Doris Bergen
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The Janowska concentration camp may well be the most important Holocaust place most people have never heard of. It was central to the Holocaust in eastern Poland, was the scene of unspeakable cruelty, but also witnessed a successful armed uprising.
In this episode hosted by the amazing Holocaust historian Doris Bergen, we talk about my work on the camp and what a study of Janowska tells us about the Holocaust.
Waitman Wade Beorn is an associate professor of history at Northumbria University in Newcastle, UK. He i...
Ep. 75- Guilt and the Postwar Lives of Nazi Perpetrators with Katherina von Kellenbach
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How did Nazi war criminals engage with (or deny) their giult? How was the prosecution and conviction of Nazi perpetrators dealt with in families? What was the role of religion and faith assuaging guilt?
These are some fo the fascinating questions that we cover in this episode with Katherina von Kellenbach who has engaged with this topic using a unique set of really interesting sources.
Katharina von Kellenbach is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
von Kellenbach, Katharina. The...
Ep. 74- The Global History of Concentration Camps witih Andrea Pitzer
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What is a concentration camp? What are the distinguishing features of these spaces? Where did they come from?
In this episode, I talk with Andrea Pitzer about the long, global history of the concentration camp and its evolution over time. We talk about what the definition is, what qualifies something as a concentration camp, and how different societies have learned from each other in their various iterations of "the camp."
Andrea Pitzer is a journalist and author.
Pitzer, Andrea. One Long Night: A Global His...
Ep. 73- Babi Yar History and Memory with Victoria Khiterer
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It was the largest open shooting of the Holocaust (and perhaps in history). Yet the murder in Babi Yar of 33,000+ Jews and other victims remained for much of its postwar life, unmarked and uncommemorated, at least officially.
In this episode, I talked with VIctoria Khiterer about the fascinating history of Jews in Kyiv, before, during, and after the Holocaust. It's an insightful look into challenge of Holocaust memory from the Soviet period to modern-day Ukraine.
Victoria Khiterer is a Professor of History at Mi...
Ep. 72- Empathy, Witnessing, and the Challenge of the Holocaust with Carolyn Dean
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How do we approach witnessing the Holocaust? Are there appropriate or inappropriate ways to do this? Does witnessing make us more empathetic or more indifferent? These are just some of the questions we addressed in this episode with Carolyn Dean.
We also talked about the role of images in teaching about the Holocaust as well as the role of empathy in bystander behavior.
Carolyn Dean is the Charles J. Stille Professor of History and French at Yale University.
Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
Ep. 71- Queering the Holocaust with Anna Hájková
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An important part of researching the Holocaust is recovering the stories of the diverse group of victims of the Nazi genocidal project. For a very long time, queer victims have been marginalized or overlooked in this process.
In this episode, I talked with Anna Hájková about her work in queering the Holocaust, that is in writing the experience of these people into the history. We talked about the queer Jewish experience but also about the value of this kind of work for teaching us about the doing of history.
Ep. 70- Women in the Holocaust with Elissa Bemporad
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How did women experience the Holocaust differently from men? What do we learn from considering a gender perspective when we look at the past? How did gender play a role in survival and oppression?
For a long time, women's experiences (and a gendered approach to understanding them was absent from our study of the Holocaust. In this episode, we have a far-ranging conversation looking at many of the questions listed above.
Elissa Bemporad is the Ungar Chair in East European Jewish History and the...
Ep. 69- Wehrmacht Chaplains and the Holocaust with Doris Bergen
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How could one be a man of God in Nazi Germany? And, especially, how can one minister to the Wehrmacht, itself an instrument of the Nazi state while professing to adhere to Christian morality? These are the questions that Doris Bergen deals with in her book on German military chaplains.
In this episode, we talk about the Nazi relationship with churches in Germany as well as about the ways in which German military chaplains became complicit in the crimes of the Third Reich.
Doris Bergen is Chancellor Ros...
EP. 68- Babi Yar: History, Memory, and Literature with Shay Pilnik
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The mass shooting of Jews at Babi Yar in Kiev in September 1941 was the largest open-air shooting of Jews during the Holocaust. In some ways, it came to stand for the Einsatzgruppen killings taking place across the occupied Soviet Union. But as it was not a camp, it left no real physical traces behind. And this was in many ways to the liking of the Soviet government.
In this episode, I talked with Shay Pilnik about the place of Babi Yar in Soviet postwar Holocaust memory. How did the...
Ep. 67- Nuremberg Trials with Jack El-Hai
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The Nuremberg Trials were the first attempt at coming to terms with Nazi criminality. While there was a legal component to this, there was also a psychological element. What made Nazi minds tick?
In this episode, I talk with Jack El-Hai about his work on psychiatrist Douglas Kelley who worked with the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg. This book also forms the basis for the new film Nuremberg.
Jack El-Hai is an author with a particular interest in medical history.
El-Hai, Jack. The Na...
Ep. 66- Feelings about Perpetrators in Yiddish Diaries with Amy Shapiro Simon
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We often make the mistake of thinking that history is all about what happened and why. However, its also very much about how people felt about what was happening to them.
In this episode, I talked with Amy Shapiro SImon about her work on the ways in which Jews described their oppressors in Yiddish diaries. She researched diary writers in the Warsaw, Łodz, and Vilnius ghettos.
Amy Shapiro Simon is the William and Audrey Farber Family Chair in Holocaust Studies and European Jewish History at Michigan Sta...
Ep. 65- A Nazi doctor and Post-war Justice with Andrew Wisely
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Despite some popular perception, Holocaust perpetrators are rarely cartoonish pure evil characters. In fact, many of them understood their guilt and actively sought to weave false narratives to exonerate themselves or avoid prosecution.
The story of Franz Lucas is one such narrative. In this episode, I talk with Andrew Wisely about Lucas, an SS doctor at multiple concentration camps. We discuss his complicity in the Holocaust as well as his attempts to avoid prosecution in post-war German society.65
Andrew Wisely is Professor of German at Baylor University.
Ep. 64- The Birdman of Auschwitz with Nicholas Milton
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Sometimes it can still be surprising how deeply the Nazi state tainted every aspect of society...including ornithology. In this fascinating episode, I talk with Nicholas Milton about Günther Niethammer, a famous academic who became a guard at Auschwitz where he continued his scholarly activities.
It's a really interesting examination of both individual choices during the Holocaust and the impossibility of remaining divorced from the reality of Nazi crimes.
Nicholas Milton is an historian, journalist, and birdwatcher.
Milton, Nicholas. The Birdman of...
Ep. 63- Yiddish and the Holocaust with Hannah Pollin-Galay
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The Nazis’ physical war on Jews also had important cultural repercussions. One of these was its assault on Yiddish. The Holocaust not only murdered many Yiddish speakers and destroyed Yiddish institutions, but it also changed the language itself.
In this episode, I talk with Hannah Pollin-Galay about fascinating work on Yiddish during the Holocaust. We talked about the new words added as well as the attempts by Jewish linguists (and survivors) to capture and understand the new Khurbn (Destruction) Yiddish.
Hannah Pollin-Galay is the Pen Tishkach Chair of Hol...
Ep. 62- Dehumanization and Genocide with David Livingstone Smith
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We often hear the term “dehumanization” used in a variety of contexts. For example, dehumanization a set of beliefs, or a set of behaviors? Is it metaphorical or do people actually believe their victims are less than human?
In this episode, I talk with David Livingstone Smith about his fascinating, challenging, and insightful work on dehumanization, particularly in the context of the Holocaust. This is an episode that will definitely make you think.
David Livingstone Smith is a professor of philosophy at the University of New England.
Sm...
Ep. 61- Writing about Holocaust Perpetrators with Erin McGlothlin
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How do we write about Holocaust perpetrators? What does that tell us about not only the historical figures themselves but also the ways in which we approach, describe, and analyze them.
In this week’s episode, I talk with Erin McGlothlin about how writers have dealt with perpetrators in both fiction and non-fiction and also about the ways in which fiction narratives influence how we tell non-fiction stories.
Erin McGlothlin is Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Holocaust Studies and Vice Dean of Undergraduate Affairs at Washington University in St...
Ep. 60- Perpetrators of Mass Violence with Alette Smeulers
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What makes someone a perpetrator? Are killers born or made? One thing that is clear in studying the Holocaust and other genocides is that perpetrators come in all shapes and sizes with just as diverse a set of motivations.
On today’s episode, I talked with Alette Smeulers about her work in studying perpetrators from a variety of perspectives across many different forms of mass violence.
Alette Smeulers is a professor in the faculty of law at the University of Groningen.
Smeulers, Alette. Perpetr...
Ep. 59- The Auschwitz Sonderkommando with Dominic Williams
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Arguably, one of the worst places for prisoners to work during the Holocaust was the Sonderkommando—the group of prisoners forced to work in and around the gas chambers, disposing of corpses.
Yet they also managed to create a number of texts that survived the Holocaust even if they did not. In this episode, I talk with Dominic Williams about the Auschwitz Sonderkommando, its place in the Holocaust, and the documents it left behind.
Dominic Williams is an assistant professor of history at Nort...
Ep. 58- Evolution of Genocide with Benjamin Meiches
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The concept of genocide is one of the few ideas created from scratch in the 20th century. As a result, it can be incredibly complicated to interpret, both legally and historically. Indeed, the definition itself has often made it difficult to prosecute.
In this episode, I talk with Benjamin Meiches about the evolution of the concept genocide, the role of the Holocaust in its creation, and the challenges the debate over definitions raise today.
Benjamin Meiches is an associate professor at the University of Washington-Tacoma.
Ep. 57- Magnus Hirschfeld, the trans community, and the Nazis with Brandy Schillace
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When the Nazis carried out their infanous and well-documented book burning on the Opernplatz in May 1933, the literal fuel for that fire came from Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science, an institution that both studied and provided treatment for LGBTQ Germans.
In this episode, I talked with Brandy Schillace about Hirschfeld, the struggle for gay rights in Weimar Germany, and the Nazi assault on the gay community as well as the connections between this homophobia and antisemitism and genocide.
Brandy Schillace, PhD is an independent...
Ep. 56- The Holocaust in Bulgaria with Nadége Ragaru
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The story of Bulgaria and the Holocaust is often a narrative about how Bulgaria protected its Jews from the Nazis. But is this really case? Certainly not in the case of Thrace and Macedonia.
In this episode, I talked with Nadege Ragaru about the history of the complex Holocaust in Bulgaria and its attempts to come to terms with this past.
Nadège Ragaru is a research professor at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po Paris.
Ragaru, Nadége. Bulgaria, the Jews, a...
Ep. 55- Holocaust Photographs with Hilary Earl and Valerie Hébert
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In December 1941, an SS man took a series of 12 photographs of an Einsatzgruppen killing in Latvia. The negatives were stolen by a survivor who had copies made and retrieved them after the war.
In today’s episode, we explore what we can learn about the Holocaust from these photographs and, indeed, from photographs in general. I talk with Hillary Earl and Valerie Hébert who have written in depth about these images.
Hilary Earl is a professor of history at Nipissing University.
Vale...
Ep. 54- Early Violence against Jews in 1933 with Hermann Beck
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When did the Holocaust start? How soon after Hitler took power did anti-Jewish violence begin? These are some of the important questions we explore in this episode as I talk with Hermann Beck and the surge in antisemitic violence in the wake of the Nazi rise to power in 1933.
In his pathbreaking book, Hermann Beck has documented an explosion of serious violence including murders in the immediate wake of Hitler’s appointment as chancellor in January 1933. Importantly, we also talk about what institutions could have done at this early stage...
Ep. 53- Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the Holocaust with Michael S. Bryand and John J. Michalczyk
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Among the books that many people talk about but few have read, certainly Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is one. But it IS a difficult read. How do we interpret this book? How significant is it? And what does it tell us about the Holocaust? These are some of the questions we tackled in this episode with the editors of a new volume on the subject.
In this episode, I talked with Michael S. Bryant and John J. Michalcayk about this important book and how to understand it.
Mi...
Ep. 52- Mengele in South America with Betina Anton
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Many Nazis including Josef Mengele, Adolf Eichmann, Franz Stangl, and Klaus Barbie escaped Europe and fled to South America in an attempt to evade prosecution for their crimes. We know quite a bit about their lives and crimes during the Holocaust but much less about the network of people that supported them in their new lives in South America.
I spoke with Betina Anton about her work researching the people who helped Josef Mengele and her personal connection to this case.
Note: You may want to listen to Ep. 26...
Ep. 51- Klaus Barbie and his Trial with Richard J. Golsan
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Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, led a terrible and fascinating life, from Nazi torturer to advisor to brutal South American dictatorships. However, unlike many, he was eventually brought to justice for his crimes.
In this episode, I talk with Richard J. Golsan about the sensational trial of Klaus Barbie and its effect on the memory of the Holocaust in France.
Richard J. Golsan is University Distinguished Professor and Director of the French Institute at Texas A&M University.
Golsan, Richard J. Justice in Lyon: Kla...
Ep. 50- Digital Humanities and the Holocaust with Todd Presner
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How can the digital humanities address and explore the Holocaust? In these days of Chat GPT, we may be rightly wary about the use of computers to analyze the past. However, today’s episode shows how an ethical approach to using computational methods can expand our understanding of the past often by showing us new questions that we hadn’t considered before.
In this episode, I talk with Todd Presner about his fascinating and impressive work with the “big data” of recorded Holocaust testimony.
Todd Presner is...
Ep. 49- Reframing Holocaust Testimony with Noah Shenker
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Many of us have seen or listened to recorded Holocaust survivor testimony. But have we thought about HOW that testimony was created? And what role that process of eliciting testimony might play in the kinds of things survivors talk about it?
In this episode, I talked with Noah Shenker about how three different archives approached gathering testimony but also about what this means for our understanding of the Holocaust and the ways that survivors remember and recount their experiences.
Noah Shenker is an Associate Professor of J...
Ep. 48- War Criminals in Australia with Jayne Persian
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Among the flood of displaced persons that washed across Germany after WWII were a large number of perpetrators, particularly from Eastern Europe. They mostly passed unnoticed (and unbothered) by occupation authorities to start new lives elsewhere. A large number of these Holocaust perpetrators arrived in Australia where they not only remained unrepentant but established new fascist networks. In this episode, I talk with Jayne Persian about these fascists in exile in Australia.
Persian, Jayne. Fascists in Exile: Post-War Displaced Persons in Australia (2023)
Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.<...
Ep. 47- A Nazi in the Family with Kai Hoess
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What is it like to have a Nazi in the family? What if that Nazi was Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz? One of the least studied areas of Holocaust history is the ways in which the families and descendants of former Nazis engage with their family history.
I am very grateful to be joined on this week’s podcast by Kai Hoess, grandson of Rudolf Hoess, to talk about his family history and his own journey to coming to terms with his past. As always, this podcast does not endorse any...
Ep. 46- Nazi Architecture with Paul Jaskot
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Architecture (and architects) played a critical role in not just the Third Reich, but also the Holocaust. Nazi architects helped embody the Nazi worldview in their monumental work but also in the designs of concentration camps. They were willing collaborators in the use of slave labor and, ultimately, in the construction of the apparatuses of genocide. In this episode, I talk with architecture and Holocaust historian Paul Jaskot about all these facets of architecture in the Third Reich.
Paul Jaskot is Professor of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies and...
Ep. 45- Jewish Resistance in Germany with Wolf Gruner
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How did Jews in Germany resist the Nazis? What were the choices that they made to stand up against the regime where its authoritarian power was greatest?
In this episode, I talk with Wolf Gruner about his research on this topic and his surprising discovery of the extent of resistance by Jewish Germans in the heart of the Nazi state.
Wolf Gruner is the Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History and director of the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research at the University of...
