12 Years That Shook the World

From an office in Geneva, Switzerland, two friends—a Jewish businessman and the Salvadoran colonel who rescued him—manufactured thousands of false citizenship documents that protected Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe. This is the story of the largest Holocaust rescue you’ve never heard of. Featuring Edna Friedberg, a historian at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Please be advised: This podcast contains stories that listeners may find disturbing. Listen with caution.

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“We are in the presence of a crime without a name,” Winston Churchill said in a 1941 speech. At the time of the Holocaust, there was no legal definition for an atrocity on such an enormous scale. And there wouldn’t be one for seven more years—until the United Nations adopted the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. How has this document been applied in a post-Holocaust world?

Featuring Cameron Hudson, Senior Strategy Advisor and former director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Please be advised: This podcast contains stories that listeners may find disturbing. Listen with caution.

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Most of what we know about the Holocaust comes from Nazi perpetrator documents. One striking exception is the Ringelblum Archive: a massive collection of artifacts and writings from Jews trapped in the Warsaw ghetto during the German occupation of Poland. Under the leadership of historian Emanuel Ringelblum, these oppressed people secretly wrote and preserved their own history.

Featuring Holocaust scholar Leah Wolfson, Senior Program Officer at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Please be advised: This podcast contains stories that listeners may find disturbing. Listen with caution.

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Thank you for listening. What did you think of the show? Take a quick survey, send your comments via email to [email protected].

12 Years That Shook the World explores stories of real people, the choices they made, and specific moments in Holocaust history from 1933–1945.