Welcome back to Circa 1945. Stories to Remember, lessons to resist, blueprints for hope.

Every time genocide comes up online, someone eventually says a version of the same thing.

"At least Thanos was merciful."

They mean it was quick.

They mean it was painless.

They mean it didn’t single anyone out.

Half of everyone. No hatred. No suffering. Just… gone.

And I understand why that sounds humane.

But today, I want to sit with an uncomfortable question:

What if the thing that makes Thanos feel merciful

is the same thing that made real-world extermination machines so effective?

There was a place built for one purpose only.

Not labor. Not punishment.

Just disappearance.

Its name was Treblinka.

Check out this documentary: ⁠https://youtu.be/JZ2E3tcctcw?si=KkGizlaLi9MubzOA⁠

Image Source: ⁠https://www.cbr.com/mcu-character-performed-a-snap/

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society.

Because studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom.

Today, I wanted to discuss how easy it is to misunderstand the term “genocide”, and why this is dangerous.

⁠https://www.nahuntahall.org/academics/primary-school/montessori-academic-foundations/montessori-mathematics/⁠

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine.

In the last episode, I told a parable about three kinds of neighbors:

the vulnerable,

the opportunists,

and the fire-minded ones.

The people who help,

the people who prey,

and the people who show up.

That parable was universal.

It applied to any crisis, any disaster, any moment where a community is tested.

Today, I want to talk about why I told that story.

Why it matters to me personally.

And why fire-mindedness isn’t just a metaphor —

it’s the difference between safety and danger.

This is Part Two.

The part where the parable becomes real.

⁠https://www.istockphoto.com/illustrations/mutual-aid

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine.

A podcast about genocide as infrastructure —

and the counter-infrastructure we must build to prevent it.

Today, I want to offer a very simple parable.

One that came to me while thinking about safety,

community, and the quiet ways we prepare for danger long before it arrives.

It’s about neighbors.

And fire.

And the three kinds of people you meet

when you start paying close attention.

This is The Fire-Minded Neighbor.

Image Credit: ⁠https://www.gettyimages.ca/videos/apartment-building-on-fire

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society.

In today's episode, a darkly funny museum moment turns into a structural insight: how marginalized people learn to recognize the predator gaze long before danger arrives. Light, sharp, and surprisingly hopeful.

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast about genocide as infrastructure and the counter-infrastructure we must build to prevent it.

Today’s story is about an autistic child, just like me.

A twelve-year-old girl with Disney socks, a world-map rug, and a brain wired to see history as shapes.

Not heroes. Not villains. Not morality tales.

Shapes. Patterns. Structures. Heads that grow, split, devour, collapse, or endure.

It’s a story about what happens when a child sees something that the adults around her refuse to see — a pattern repeating itself in new words and familiar shapes.

Image Source: ⁠https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1465693795/global-world-map-rug-safari-animal⁠

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine.

A podcast that asks one question. What would it take to build a genocide-proof society?

Today, instead of telling you a parable, I want to take you on a journey with me.

This journey will take the form of a guided meditation. So relax, close your eyes if you like, and listen to my voice.

You see, I had a spiritual experience in summer 2025 that led me to Judaism, and eventually to my chosen purpose in life. But somehow every time I try to describe it to anyone, words fail to capture the essence of it.

But if I translate it into symbols and weave those symbols into a story for you, I think we can experience it together.

Let’s begin.

Image Source: ⁠https://stock.adobe.com/ca/images/illustration-of-human-body-in-meditation-pose-with-fire-flame-and-aura-emerge-from-body-shape-against-black-dark-background-generative-ai/563665441⁠

Welcome back to Circa 1945. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society.

If you refuse to hear a person define their own viewpoint…

If you rely on what someone else told you they believe…

If you cannot tolerate being corrected about the beliefs of the group you claim to oppose…

If your emotional state depends on refusing to listen…

You’re not fighting propaganda.

You’re inside propaganda.

You have become part of the machinery.

Image Source: ⁠https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/516e6YexsJL.jpg⁠

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine.

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

Sometimes the answer doesn’t come from a history book or a sermon.

Sometimes it comes from a stranger on the phone — a man who’s lived long enough to know what patterns look like.

Image Source: ⁠https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17299607⁠

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine.

After last week’s episode — one of the heaviest I’ve ever made — I want to shift into something gentler. Not emotionally gentle, necessarily, but structurally gentle.

Sometimes the best way to understand the machinery of violence…

is to look at a fictional world where that machinery has already won.

Today’s parable comes from a horror movie.

A gory, campy, vampire-apocalypse movie that, somehow, has one of the most hopeful endings I’ve ever seen.

It’s called Daybreakers.

And underneath all the blood and fire, it tells a story about scarcity, collapse…

and cure.

Image Source: ⁠https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daybreakers⁠