The Holocaust History Podcast Waitman Wade Beorn

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 Eisnehower’s visit to Ohrdruf here courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
 
Jason Lantzer is an historian and also Assistant Director of the Honors Program at Butler University.
 
Lantzer, Jason. Dwight Eisenhower and the Holocaust: A History (2023)


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Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.com

The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

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

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 the ways in which heritage sites engage with visitors.
 
Irene Ann Resenly has worked as a Holocaust educator and scholar for nearly two decades in diverse settings and is currently a middle school social studies teacher in suburban Wisconsin.
 
Resenly, I. A. (2022). Site Educators in Germany’s Perceptions of Practice: The Sense-Maker and the Storyteller. In Tour Guides at Memorial Sites and Holocaust Museums: Empirical Studies in Europe, Israel, North America and South Africa. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 33-45.
 
Schweber, S., & Resenly, I. A. (2018). Curricular Imprints or the Presence of Curricular Pasts: A Study of One Third Grader’s Holocaust Education 12 Years Later. Holocaust Education in Primary Schools in the Twenty-First Century: Current Practices, Potentials and Ways Forward. pp. 3-18.


Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.com

The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

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

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 Joskowciz is an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University.
 
Joskowicz, Ari.  Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust (2023)


Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.com

The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

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

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 disturbing content.
 
Ed Westermann a Regents Professor of History at Texas A&M University- San Antonio.
Westermann, Edward. Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany (2021) 


Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.com

The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

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

This episode covers a lot of ground with my guests from the Auschwitz Jewish Center, Tomek Kuncewicz and Maciek Zabierowski.  We talk about the history of the Jewish community in Oświęcim, Poland as well as the challenges of educating the Polish non-Jewish community about the Holocaust.  We close with a discussion of the ways in which the Holocaust is used in Polish politics today.
 
To learn more about the valuable work of the Center, click here!
 
 
Tomek Kuncewicz is the director of the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim, Poland.
 
Maciek Zabierowski is head of the education department at Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim, Poland.


Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.com

The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

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

The Nazis pursued a variety of strategies in their attempts to murder all the Jews of Europe.  One of these was starvation, particularly within ghettos where they could control the flow of food to captive populations.
In this episode, I talk with Professor Helene Sinnreich about the experience of hunger in the Warsaw, Łodz, and Krakow ghettos.  She tells us about the ways in which the Nazis used hunger as a weapon, the effects it had on ghetto populations, and the diverse ways in which different Jewish communities confronted this assault.


Helene J. Sinnreich is a professor and head of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Tennesse-Knoxville.

Sinnreich, Helene J. The Atrocity of Hunger: Starvation in the Warsaw, Lodz and Krakow Ghettos during World War II (2023)
Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.com

The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

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