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The mass shooting of Jews at Babi Yar in Kiev in September 1941 was the largest open-air shooting of Jews during the Holocaust. In some ways, it came to stand for the Einsatzgruppen killings taking place across the occupied Soviet Union. But as it was not a camp, it left no real physical traces behind. And this was in many ways to the liking of the Soviet government.

In this episode, I talked with Shay Pilnik about the place of Babi Yar in Soviet postwar Holocaust memory. How did the state allow/repress commemoration of the massacre? And, in particular, how did Soviet writers, both Jewish and non-Jewish treat the Babi Yar massacre? It's a really enlightening conversation about the Holocaust, memory, and the ways in which the authoritarian state controls commemoration.

Shay Pilnik is Director of the Emil A. and Jenny Fish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Yeshiva University.

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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.

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The Nuremberg Trials were the first attempt at coming to terms with Nazi criminality. While there was a legal component to this, there was also a psychological element. What made Nazi minds tick?

In this episode, I talk with Jack El-Hai about his work on psychiatrist Douglas Kelley who worked with the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg. This book also forms the basis for the new film Nuremberg.

Jack El-Hai is an author with a particular interest in medical history.

El-Hai, Jack. The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII (2013)

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.

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We often make the mistake of thinking that history is all about what happened and why. However, its also very much about how people felt about what was happening to them.

In this episode, I talked with Amy Shapiro SImon about her work on the ways in which Jews described their oppressors in Yiddish diaries. She researched diary writers in the Warsaw, Łodz, and Kaunas ghettos.

Amy Shapiro Simon is the William and Audrey Farber Family Chair in Holocaust Studies and European Jewish History at Michigan State University.

Simon, Amy Shapiro. Emotions in Yiddish Ghetto Diaries Encountering Persecutors and Questioning Humanity (2024)

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.