Episodes
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How can anybody in their right mind deny the reality of the Holocaust? You'd be surprised… Don't the horrific photographs of bodies piled high prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what went on in the death camps? But wait a second. In a court of law the burden of proof is on the accuser, and how often are clever defense lawyers able to twist and distort the evidence so that even respectable jurors are utterly confused? The fact is, proving the Holocaust isn't as easy as it sounds, and deniers abound in today's world. Find out how to confront them and how to drive home the plain truth!
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Missing episodes?
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How did the Jews of Germany respond to the rise of Hitler? Did they conclude that it was time to leave Germany? The illustrious Rabbi Leo Baeck published this chilling document (“Between Heaven and Earth”) on June 1, 1933, calling German Jews to remain firmly rooted on the soil of their homeland. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20-20…
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Did the Allies abandon the Jews? Did they actually know about the size and scope of the genocide taking place and simply look the other way? It's easy and even fashionable to argue that the Allies knew about the camps, that they overflew the railroad lines but did not bomb them. Why was no rescue effort of Jews and other persecuted minorities even attempted? Find out in this provocative new video presentation.
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When it comes to modern approaches toward faith, God and spirituality, the Shoah has arguably changed everything. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once remarked: “We have all the reasons to give up … on man, on faith, and even on God. We have the reasons to do so, but we will not invoke them. And in spite of everything, we will go on believing.” Not only is it important to consider how the Jewish faith has been affected, post-Holocaust, but how observant Jews were impacted, with regard to their faith, in the midst of the tragedy. Elie Wiesel, for his part, was said to have put God on trial at Auschwitz. It will also be instructive to consider two Jewish leaders, both ultra-orthodox rabbis, who were victims of the Nazi genocide. Their perspectives (unlike post-Holocaust theology) provide a window on Jewish thought while events were unfolding. The reflections of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, who was residing in Warsaw at the outbreak of the war, were published in Israel in 1960 under the title Esh Kodesh. Taken as a whole, Rabbi Shapira’s book lays out a normative theology of suffering. Another ultra-orthodox rabbi, Yissachar Teichtal, was living in Budapest during the Nazi era. His theology is even more dramatic, rejecting all exilic philosophies, and developing a religious Zionist philosophy. If there is a to be found a merging of the two approaches, it is in the idea of “reconstruction,” on the one hand of the individual, and on the other, of the Jewish nation – the uniquely Jewish concept of tikkun.
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Jewish Faith in the Holocaust #16 When it comes to modern approaches toward faith, God and spirituality, the Holocaust changed everything. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has said: "We have all the reasons to give up … on man, on faith, and even on God. We have the reasons to do so, but we will not invoke them. And in spite of everything, we will go on believing." How has people's faith been affected, post-Holocaust, and how did people of faith cope in the midst of the tragedy?
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Operation Reinhard #15 How did the horror of the Nazi death camps evolve? Auschwitz didn’t just sprout from the ground one day. There was an “evolution” of the murder machinery, and a cast of diabolical characters most people have never heard of. It’s time to set the record straight with this powerful video episode.
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France:Bystanders, Collaborators, and Helpers #14
About 80,000 Jews were deported from France during the Holocaust years. Nothing to brag about, but far fewer than the hundreds of thousands of Jews who lived there. The majority of French Jews found escape. In over 6,000 towns all across France, individual French gave significant aid and shelter to their Jewish neighbors. Why? What was really going on in France during these perilous times? Find out in this episode…
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Theresienstadt: The"Model Ghetto"#13 Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer notes: “Of the 139,654 Jews deported to Theresienstadt before April 1945, a scant 16,832 were freed when the ghetto was liberated after the end of the war, on May 9, 1945.” It is one of the most melancholy, yet heroic stories of the entire Holocaust era. It must not, and it cannot be forgotten.
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Jewish Resistance The Fight Against Nazi Tyranny #12 It's surprising how many people honestly imagine that the Jews were somehow passive during the Holocaust. That they went like sheep to the slaughter. But resistance there was, and it was spearheaded by certain groups that we might not immediately associate with resistance – the Jewish youth movements of Central Europe.
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The Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in the Holocaust Era #11 Well after Hitler rose to power in Germany, the Nazis realized that they still needed Jewish organizations to act in an intermediary capacity with the German government. They decided to establish Judenrat — Jewish councils. Most were organized with one purpose – to execute Nazi policies. Both the leaders and the captive populations had little choice but to cooperate. Who among us can sit in judgment?
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The Wannsee Conference #10 On Jan. 20, 1942, a conference was convened in a Berlin suburb, in a place called Am Grossen Wannsee. Adolf Hitler did not attend, but it's clear that the “Final Solution” wasn't conceived at Wannsee. The order was Hitler's, and Hitler's alone. He gave it. He was the motivating factor. How early was his actual intent to implement genocide? That’s the lingering question, addressed in this dynamic episode…
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The Final Solution The Decisive Year #9 When did the "Final Solution" actually take shape? Can we pinpoint the exact moment in which Hitler's madness was transformed from wild rhetorical flourishes to serious design? One thing is clear: nothing was "set in stone," even well into the Nazi reign of terror. Things could have taken a very different course, had it not been for decisions taken in one year in particular…
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Courage and Conscience: The Jewish Response in Germany #8 Question: Could the roughly half a million Jews in Germany during the Hitler era have gotten out if they had wanted to? Was Hitler somehow holding them captive as soon as he rose to power? And if the Nazis would have been delighted to let the Jews of Germany leave, why didn’t they? Find out in this provocative video!
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We have a sense of what Nazi policy entailed from the rise of Hitler in 1933 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. But let's dig a little deeper and ask how much the average German really knew about the inner workings of Nazi ideology. As for Germany’s Jews, they had to recognize that from now on, they would have to live is a minority in a racist state.
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As soon as we hear the word “Holocaust” we immediately think of Nazi Germany and of Poland, but there are two very important countries that are not immediately associated with the Holocaust – Hungary and Romania. But as we shall see, a good number of the casualties of the Holocaust years occurred exactly in these lands. The backstory (including Elie Wiesel, author of "Night") is worth our attention…
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Who were the Jews of Poland, those who represent by far the greatest number of casualties during the Holocaust? Of the 16 to 17 million Jews in the world before the Holocaust, some 11-12 million lived in Europe – 9 million in Eastern Europe. A significant portion of those lived in Poland. Of a pre-war Polish Jewish population of 3 1/2 million, after the war only between 20,000 and 50,000 remained. The rest is history…
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Dr. Ken Hanson, Yad Vashem graduate and associate professor in the Judaic Studies Program of the University of Central Florida, performs as Martin Niemoller, the famous German theologian who was ultimately arrested by the Nazis and who authored the famous quotation:
When they came for the communists, I remained silent; because I was not a communist...When they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; because I was not a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out. -
Here are the first couple of minutes of Episode 2 of my retooled and re-edited course on the history of the Holocaust! The subject: Why did the Holocaust erupt in one of the most cultured nations on earth – Germany?
We believe we have something here that can be commercialized and marketed, not only to schools and universities but to the general public, via my own redesigned website (rather than my YouTube channel). Consequently, I can only share snippet, with the promise of much more to come… Stay tuned… -
Here are the first few minutes of Episode 1 of my retooled and re-edited course on the history of the Holocaust! We believe we have something here that can be commercialized and marketed, not only to schools and universities but to the general public, via my own redesigned website (rather than my YouTube channel). Consequently, I can only share snippet, with the promise of much more to come… Stay tuned…
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