Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine.

In the last episode, I told you a story without commentary. This time, I’ll tell you another story, but then I’ll unpack it. Because sometimes the smallest, most ordinary things — even two cats in a one-bedroom apartment — can teach us something about the machinery of genocide.

Image Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/lebensraum-eastern-expansion-4081248

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.