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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 concept of genocide is one of the few ideas created from scratch in the 20th century.  As a result, it can be incredibly complicated to interpret, both legally and historically.  Indeed, the definition itself has often made it difficult to prosecute.

In this episode, I talk with Benjamin Meiches about the evolution of the concept genocide, the role of the Holocaust in its creation, and the challenges the debate over definitions raise today.

Benjamin Meiches is an associate professor at the University of Washington-Tacoma.

Meiches, Benjamin.  The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide (2019)

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When the Nazis carried out their infanous and well-documented book burning on the Opernplatz in May 1933, the literal fuel for that fire came from Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science, an institution that both studied and provided treatment for LGBTQ Germans.

In this episode, I talked with Brandy Schillace about Hirschfeld, the struggle for gay rights in Weimar Germany, and the Nazi assault on the gay community as well as the connections between this homophobia and antisemitism and genocide.

Brandy Schillace, PhD is an independent historian and journalist.

Schillace, Brandy. The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story (2025)

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The story of Bulgaria and the Holocaust is often a narrative about how Bulgaria protected its Jews from the Nazis. But is this really case?  Certainly not in the case of Thrace and Macedonia.

 In this episode, I talked with Nadege Ragaru about the history of the complex Holocaust in Bulgaria and its attempts to come to terms with this past.

Nadège Ragaru is a research professor at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po Paris.

Ragaru, Nadége.  Bulgaria, the Jews, and the Holocaust: On the Origins of a Heroic Narrative (2023)

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In December 1941,  an SS man took a series of 12 photographs of an Einsatzgruppen killing in Latvia.  The negatives were stolen by a survivor who had copies made and retrieved them after the war.

In today’s episode, we explore what we can learn about the Holocaust from these photographs and, indeed, from photographs in general.  I talk with Hillary Earl and Valerie Hébert who have written in depth about these images.

Hilary Earl is a professor of history at Nipissing University.

Valerie Hébert is a professor of history and interdisciplinary studies at Lakehead University.

Hébert, Valerie (ed). Framing the Holocaust (2025)

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Email the podcast at [email protected]

The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

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