Latest Shoah Podcast Episodes
Isak Danon: Attack on the Synagogue in Split
First Person Podcast - June 30, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsIsak Danon discusses the attack on the synagogue in his hometown of Split, Yugoslavia, in the summer of 1942. Germany had invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, and shortly after Split was occupied by the Italians, allied to Nazi Germany.
Fritz Gluckstein: Berlin in the Aftermath of World War II
First Person Podcast - June 24, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsFritz Gluckstein discusses life immediately after World War II in Berlin and his eventual immigration to the United States. Born to a Jewish father and Christian mother, he was classified under Nazi law as Mischlinge, of mixed ancestry, or part Jewish. He spent the war in Berlin assigned to var...
Helen Luksenburg: Forming a Friendship in Gleiwitz
First Person Podcast - June 23, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsHelen Luksenburg discusses forming a close friendship with Welek, now William Luksenburg, a fellow prisoner in Gleiwitz, a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Louise Lawrence-Israëls: First Days of Freedom
First Person Podcast - June 17, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsLouise Lawrence-Israëls discusses her first memories of freedom after over two years spent in hiding with her family in an apartment in Amsterdam. In May 1945, Canadian forces liberated Amsterdam. Louise was three years old and initially had difficulty adjusting to the world outside the apartment...
David Bayer: Life After the German Invasion of Poland
First Person Podcast - June 16, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsDavid Bayer discusses life in his hometown of Kozienice after the German invasion of Poland in September, 1939. Shortly after the invasion David and his family were harassed, humiliated, and subjected to acts of violence by the German occupiers and their collaborators.
Susan Taube: Deportation to the Riga Ghetto
First Person Podcast - June 09, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsSusan Taube discusses her deportation from Berlin to the ghetto in Riga, Latvia, and the days immediately following. She was deported in January, 1942, along with her mother, sister, and grandmother.
Morris Rosen: Forced Evacuation
First Person Podcast - June 03, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsMorris Rosen discusses his evacuation and forced march on foot in February 1945 from a subcamp of the Gross Rosen concentration camp in Poland to the Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia. In an effort to cover up their crimes and prevent prisoners from falling into enemy hands, Nazi officials ...
Esther Starobin: Fate of Family that Remained in Germany
First Person Podcast - June 02, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsEsther Starobin and her three sisters left Germany for Great Britain in 1939 as part of a special rescue of Jewish children known as the Kindertransport, or children’s transport. In this episode, Esther discusses how she learned the fate of her parents and brother who remained in Germany after sh...
Manya Friedman: Death March to Ravensbrück
First Person Podcast - May 27, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsManya Friedman discusses her evacuation from Gleiwitz, a subcamp of Auschwitz, to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in January 1945. In an effort to cover up their crimes and prevent prisoners from falling into enemy hands, the Nazis evacuated prisoners in what became known as death marches.
Gerald Liebenau: Memories of Kristallnacht
First Person Podcast - May 26, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsIn today’s episode Gerald Liebenau discusses his memories of Kristallnacht, also known as the “Night of Broken Glass.” On November 9-10, 1938, a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms erupted around Germany, leaving Jewish owned businesses and synagogues plundered and destroyed.
Freddie Traum: Evacuated to England
First Person Podcast - May 20, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsFreddie Traum discusses life as a refugee in Great Britain during World War II. Freddie and his sister were sent from their home in Austria to England as part of the Kindertransport, the special transport that brought thousands of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany between...
Charlene Schiff: A Daughter’s Separation from Her Mother
First Person Podcast - May 19, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsCharlene Schiff discusses her and her mother’s escape in 1942 from the Horochow ghetto in Poland. Soon after their escape, Charlene was separated from her mother. She spent the rest of the war looking for her mother and hiding for her life in the forests.
Gideon Frieder: Safe Harbor Among a Slovak Family
First Person Podcast - May 13, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsGideon discusses the time he spent hiding with a Catholic Slovak family. After his mother and sister perished in a German attack at Banska Bystrica, Gideon was rescued by the Slovak partisans and placed with the Strycharszyk family, who went to great lengths to hide and protect him.
Nesse Godin: A Day in the Siauliai Ghetto
First Person Podcast - May 12, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsNesse Godin discusses the day her father was rounded up and deported with a group of others in the Siauliai ghetto, in Lithuania. Nesse never saw him again.
Inge Katzenstein: Refuge In Kenya
First Person Podcast - May 06, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsInge Katzenstein discusses fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939 and finding refuge along with her family in Kenya, where they remained during the war.
Martin Weiss: Selection at Auschwitz
First Person Podcast - May 05, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsMartin Weiss discusses his deportation in May 1944 from the ghetto in Munkacs, then part of Hungary, and his arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi killing center.
Leon Merrick: Evacuation and Arrival at Buchenwald
First Person Podcast - April 29, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsIn December 1944, as the Soviet army approached the slave labor camp in Poland where Leon Merrick was imprisoned, the Germans evacuated him to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Leon shares his recollections of the evacuation and his first day in Buchenwald.
Marcel Drimer: Escaping the “Concert of Death”
First Person Podcast - April 15, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsMarcel Drimer, his sister, and mother hid in a wheat field while a German aktion—a violent operation against Jewish civilians— occurred in their town of Drohobycz, Poland, in August 1942.
Herman Taube: Writing Poetry before the Holocaust
First Person Podcast - April 14, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsHerman Taube discusses his love of poetry and how he began writing it as a young boy in Lodz, Poland, before World War II.
Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener: Arrest on Kristallnacht
First Person Podcast - March 25, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsRabbi Jacob G. Wiener discusses his experience during Kristallnacht, known as the “Night of Broken Glass,” on November 9–10, 1938. He was arrested and his mother was murdered as a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms swept across Germany.
Halina Peabody: Living under a False Identity
First Person Podcast - March 18, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsHalina Peabody discusses living in Jaroslaw, Poland, under false papers identifying her as a Catholic. A local woman took Halina and her mother and sister in and gave them a place to live, while never suspecting they were Jews hiding as Catholics.
Erika Eckstut: A Young Girl’s Experience in the Ghetto
First Person Podcast - March 04, 2009 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsErika Eckstut discusses the difficulties and dangers of life in the Czernowitz ghetto in what was then Romania (and today is western Ukraine). Erika was an adventurous teenager and her father went to great lengths to protect her and maintain her education.
Leon Merrick: Importance of Work in the Lodz Ghetto
First Person Podcast - July 01, 2008 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsLeon Merrick's job delivering mail in the Lodz ghetto became all the more difficult over time as Nazi deportations to the extermination camps increased and he was often given the task of delivering notices for deportation.
Louise Lawrence-Israëls: A Family’s Efforts to Create a “Normal Life” while in Hiding
First Person Podcast - June 25, 2008 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsLouise Lawrence-Israëls shares memories from her early childhood spent hiding in Amsterdam. In 1942, six-month-old Louise and her family went into hiding on the fourth floor of a rowhouse, where they remained until the end of the war in 1945.
Helen Goldkind: Arrival at Auschwitz
First Person Podcast - June 17, 2008 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsHelen Goldkind discusses her deportation and arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi killing center.
Jacqueline Mendels Birn: Flight from Paris
First Person Podcast - June 10, 2008 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsJacqueline Mendels Birn discusses her family’s flight in July 1942 from German-occupied Paris to the southern “free” French zone known as Vichy.
Helen Luksenburg: Survival in the Camps
First Person Podcast - June 03, 2008 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsHelen Luksenburg discusses daily life, spiritual resistance, and forced labor in Gleiwitz, a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Martin Weiss: Reflections on Liberation
First Person Podcast - May 07, 2008 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsMartin Weiss discusses his liberation from Gunskirchen, a subcamp of Mauthausen, in 1945 and the days immediately following.
Fritz Gluckstein: Protest at Rosenstrasse
First Person Podcast - March 26, 2008 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsFritz Gluckstein discusses multiple close calls with the Nazis in Berlin, his detainment at a Gestapo holding site at Rosenstrasse 2-4, and the subsequent public demonstration that brought about his release. I
Fanny Aizenberg: A Mother’s Agonizing Decision
First Person Podcast - March 19, 2008 14:00 ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsFanny Aizenberg discusses life for Belgian Jews after the German invasion in May 1940. Fanny’s husband heeded the call of the Royal Air Force asking for Belgian volunteers while Fanny took care of their young daughter in Belgium.