The Holocaust History Podcast Waitman Wade Beorn

The Treblinka extermination center was responsible for the murder of approximately 925,000 Jews during the Holocaust. It was the deadliest killing site after Auschwitz. Yet few people know that it was also the scene of a successful uprising and mass escape by the prisoners there. In this conversation with Chad Gibbs, we talked about the history of the camp as well as the work he has done in recreating the vital social networks among prisoners that enabled the prisoner revolt....

From the earliest days of the Third Reich through the end of the war, there were organized efforts to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis. Perhaps as many as 10,000 were rescued in this way, but without their parents. They ended up in a variety of countries and had diverse set of experiences. In addition, the story of the Kindertransport has worked its way into the cultural memory of the Holocaust, particularly in the United Kingdom. In this episode, I spoke wi...

General Dwight Eisenhower’s visit to the Ohrdruf concentration camp in April 1945 fundamentally changed his outlook on the war and on his enemy, the Nazis. It also changed the way he carried out his duties later as US Military Governor in charge of both caring for former concentration prisoners as well as dealing with former Nazis, and, later, as President of the United States.In this conversation with Jason Lantzer, we talk about all of this and more.You can see some wartime footage of...

We talk a lot about learning from the Holocaust and lessons from the Holocaust, but we don’t talk nearly enough about HOW to TEACH the Holocaust. Understanding how to present this complex and often difficult material to students at a variety of different grade levels (as well as to the public at heritage sites) is a critical task.In this episode, Dr. Irene Ann Resenly talks about the pedagogy of teaching about the Holocaust, challenges of working with this material in the classroom, and...

Some historians have argued that the experience of Romani people during the Holocaust most closely approximated that of the Jews in terms of policy and execution. Of course, there were also important differences. But, Jews and Romani also went through the Holocaust together. In this, really fascinating discussion, I talked with Ari Joskowicz about the Nazi genocide of Romani, their interactions with Jews, and the difficult challenge of preserving these histories. Ari Jo...

What motivated Nazi perpetrators? How do we explain the apparent ease with which so many Germans carried out acts of extreme violence? These are some of the most enduring questions raised by the Holocaust. And they are questions that scholars still grapple with today. In this episode, I talked with Prof. Ed Westermann about these questions including issues such as alcohol abuse, sexual violence, and the role of toxic masculinity. Warning: this does contain some di...