Ep. 47: A Nazi in the Family with Kai Hoess

Send us a textWhat is it like to have a Nazi in the family?  What if that Nazi was Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz? One of the least studied areas of Holocaust history is the ways in which the families and descendants of former Nazis engage with their family history.I am very grateful to be joined on this week’s podcast by Kai Hoess, grandson of Rudolf Hoess, to talk about his family history and his own journey to coming to terms with his past. As always, this podcast does not endorse any particular religion or religious doctrine. Kai Hoess is a non-denominational Christian pastor at the Bible Church of Stuttgart.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textArchitecture (and architects) played a critical role in not just the Third Reich, but also the Holocaust.  Nazi architects helped embody the Nazi worldview in their monumental work but also in the designs of concentration camps.  They were willing collaborators in the use of slave labor and, ultimately, in the construction of the apparatuses of genocide.  In this episode, I talk with architecture and Holocaust historian Paul Jaskot about all these facets of architecture in the Third Reich. Paul Jaskot is Professor of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies and co-director of the Digital Art History and Visual Culture Research Lab at Duke University. Jaskot, Paul. The Architecture of Oppression: The SS, Forced Labor and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy (1999)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textHow did Jews in Germany resist the Nazis? What were the choices that they made to stand up against the regime where its authoritarian power was greatest?  In this episode, I talk with Wolf Gruner about his research on this topic and his surprising discovery of the extent of resistance by Jewish Germans in the heart of the Nazi state. Wolf Gruner is the Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History and director of the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research at the University of Southern California. Gruner, Wolf.  Resisters: How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany (2023)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe Holocaust in Poland left hundreds of towns and villages that had previously had large Jewish populations empty.  However, important Jewish sites like synagogues and cemeteries remained.   Polish communities were then confronted with what do with these places.  In this fascinating conversation with Yechiel Weizman, we talk about his work in researching this and how some communities attempted to destroy these places and how some were were quite literally haunted by their Holocaust past. Yechiel Weizman is a lecturer in the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, Bar-Ilan University. Weizman, Yechiel. Unsettled Heritage: Living next to Poland's Material Jewish Traces after the Holocaust (2022)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textUltimately, the story of the Holocaust is one centered in places:  where something happened, where someone was from, where someone wanted to go.  In this episode, I talked with two scholars about the role of geography in the Holocaust but also about how we use geographical approaches and methodologies to ask (and answer new important historical questions.  Anne Kelly Knowles is the McBride Professor of History at the University of Maine. Tim Cole is a professor of social history at the University of Bristol. Knowles, Anne Kelly, Tim Cole, and Paul Jaskot. Geographies of the Holocaust (2014)Cole, Tim. Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto (2003)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textHow does one talk with a Holocaust survivor about their experiences?  What is the role of survivor testimony in understanding the Holocaust?  In this episode, I talk with psychologist, Holocaust scholar, and playwright Hank Greenspan about his lifetime of talking with survivors and what he has learned from that experience.Henry “Hank” Greenspan is an emeritus psychologist, oral historian and playwright at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who has been interviewing, writing about, and teaching about Holocaust survivors since the 1970s. Greenspan, Henry. On Listening to Holocaust Survivors: Beyond Testimony (2010)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textThe Nazis first targeted mentally and physically disabled Germans for mass killing, before they targeted Jews.  However, discrimination and ableist thought predated the Nazis and followed them into the postwar era.In this episode, I talk with Dagmar Herzog about both the Nazi “euthanasia” campaign, but also the larger context of discrimination against disabled people.  We also talk about those who tried to care for these vulnerable people as well as those who lobbied for their recognition as Nazi victims and for their rights in general in the postwar era. Dagmar Herzog is a Distinguished Professor of History and the Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Herzog, Dagmar. The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany’s Twentieth Century (2024)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textIn this episode, I talked with Jacob Flaws about the spaces of Treblinka.  His work analyses this extermination camp from a spatial perspective, focusing on the physical and ideological boundaries of the camp.  His work shows that the fences of the camp did not contain the truth of its existence and he details the ways in which the local population from the surrounding area interacted with the Nazi killing process and its victims.Jacob Flaws is an assistant professor of history at Kean University.Flaws, Jacob. Spaces of Treblinka: Retracing a Death Camp (2024)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textPhilosopher Theodore W. Adorno famously said that “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”  Here he gives an example of the way that many thinkers and philosophers struggled with the post-Holocaust world.  In this episode, I talked with philosopher and Holocaust scholar John K. Roth about the ways that philosophy approaches the Holocaust and how Nazi genocide challenges our understanding of the world.  John K. Roth is Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Claremont McKenna College.Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Send us a textAt least 2 million Jews were murdered by mass shooting in the Soviet Union.  The perpetrators responsible for most of these killings were the men of the Einsatzgruppen.  In this week’s episode, I talk with Jürgen Mathäus about the history of these units, their evolution from 1938 on, and the role they played in the Holocaust. Jürgen Mathäus is the director of the Applied Research Program at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The views expressed in this segment are those of the speaker; they do not necessarily represent the opinions of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.Matthäus, Jürgen, Jochen Böhler, and Klaus-Michael Mallmann. War, Pacification, and Mass Murder, 1939: The Einsatzgruppen in Poland (2014)Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.Email the podcast at [email protected] Holocaust History Podcast homepage is hereYou can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.