Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine.

This podcast asks one question: what would it take to genocide-proof a society?

Genocide doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not just ideology, not just a single evil leader. It’s infrastructure — housing, food, borders, propaganda, segregation — the machinery that makes atrocity possible.

And just like a room can be baby-proofed, I believe societies can be genocide-proofed. If we study the years around 1945 — the years of the Holocaust, and before, and their aftershocks — we can learn how.

Sometimes I’ll explain things directly. Other times, I’ll tell a story, a parable. Stories carry truths that lectures can’t. And this first episode is one of those stories.