The Holocaust History Podcast

Send a text
What is a concentration camp?  What are the distinguishing features of these spaces?  Where did they come from?
In this episode, I talk with Andrea Pitzer about the long, global history of the concentration camp and its evolution over time.  We talk about what the definition is, what qualifies something as a concentration camp, and how different societies have learned from each other in their various iterations of "the camp."

Andrea Pitzer is a journalist and author.
Pitzer, Andrea. One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps (2018)
Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
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.

Send a text
It was the largest open shooting of the Holocaust (and perhaps in history).  Yet the murder in Babi Yar of 33,000+ Jews and other victims remained for much of its postwar life, unmarked and uncommemorated, at least officially.

In this episode, I talked with VIctoria Khiterer about the fascinating history of Jews in Kyiv, before, during, and after the Holocaust.  It's an insightful look into challenge of Holocaust memory from the Soviet period to modern-day Ukraine.

Victoria Khiterer is a Professor of History at Millersville University.
Khiterer, Victoria. Bitter War of Memory: The Babyn Yar Massacre, Aftermath, and Commemoration (2025) 

Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
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.

Send a text
How do we approach witnessing the Holocaust? Are there appropriate or inappropriate ways to do this? Does witnessing make us more empathetic or more indifferent?  These are just some of the questions we addressed in this episode with Carolyn Dean.
We also talked about the role of images in teaching about the Holocaust as well as the role of empathy in bystander behavior.

Carolyn Dean is the Charles J. Stille Professor of History and French at Yale University. 
Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
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.

Send a text
An important part of researching the Holocaust is recovering the stories of the diverse group of victims of the Nazi genocidal project.  For a very long time, queer victims have been marginalized or overlooked in this process.
In this episode, I talked with Anna Hájková about her work in queering the Holocaust, that is in writing the experience of these people into the history.  We talked about the queer Jewish experience but also about the value of this kind of work for teaching us about the doing of history.

Anna Hájková is an associate professor of history at the University of Warwick.
 
Hájková, Anna. People without History are Dust- Queer Desire in the Holocaust (2025)
Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
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.

Send a text
How did women experience the Holocaust differently from men?  What do we learn from considering a gender perspective when we look at the past?  How did gender play a role in survival and oppression?

 For a long time, women's experiences (and a gendered approach to understanding them was absent from our study of the Holocaust.  In this episode, we have a far-ranging conversation looking at many of the questions listed above.

Elissa Bemporad is the Ungar Chair in East European Jewish History and the Holocaust and is Professor of History at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Bemporad, Elissa and Joyce W. Warren, eds. Women and Genocide: Survivors, Victims, Perpetrators (2018)
 
Bemporad, Elissa. Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets (2020)
Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
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.