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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 state allow/repress commemoration of the massacre?  And, in particular, how did Soviet writers, both Jewish and non-Jewish treat the Babi Yar massacre?  It's a really enlightening conversation about the Holocaust, memory, and the ways in which the authoritarian state controls commemoration.

Shay Pilnik is Director of the Emil A. and Jenny Fish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Yeshiva University.

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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 Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII (2013)

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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 State University.

Simon, Amy Shapiro.  Emotions in Yiddish Ghetto Diaries Encountering Persecutors and Questioning Humanity (2024)

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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.

Wisely, Andrew.  The Trial of a Nazi Doctor: Franz Lucas as Defendant, Opportunist, and Deceiver (2024)

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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 Auschwitz: The Life of Günther Niethammer, the Ornithologist Seduced by the Nazis (2025)

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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 Holocaust Studies and director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst.

Pollin-Galay, Hannah.  Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish (2024)

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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.

Smith, David Livingstone. Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization (2021)

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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. Louis.

McGlothlin, Erin. The Mind of the Holocaust Perpetrator in Fiction and Nonfiction (2021)

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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.  Perpetrators of Mass Atrocities: Terribly and Terrifyingly Normal? (2023)

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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 Northumbria University.

Williams, Dominic and Nicholas, Chare. The Auschwitz Sonderkommando: Testimonies, Histories, Representations(2019)

Williams, Dominic and Nicholas, Chare. Testimonies of Resistance: Representations of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando (2019)

Williams, Dominic and Nicholas, Chare. Matters of Testimony: Interpreting the Scrolls of Auschwitz(2015)

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The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

You can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.