New Play Dramatizes Eichmann Capture

Fifty years ago, Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death in an Israeli courtroom.

Nazi Board Game ‘Out With The Jews!’

In the 1930s in Germany, anti-semitism was all-pervasive, and part of that can be attributed to pop culture. A commercially successful board game for example called “Juden Raus” (Jews Out) became a pasttime of German families.

Preserving the legacies of Holocaust survivors

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Daniel Estrin reports that Israel is making moves to better preserve the legacies of Holocaust survivors. Download MP3

World Books podcast: Peter Filkins

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A few years ago, Peter Filkins, an award-winning translator of German, walked into a bookstore, read a few pages of an obscure German novel and recognized that he had stumbled onto literary gold. ‘The Journey’ was one of the 26 volumes penned by the German Jew H. G. Adler, a Holocaust survivor who sought to memorialize and understand the experience through fiction, poetry, social history, and philosophy. Filkins has now translated another of Adler’s books, entitled ‘Panorama.’
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Political language before and after Tucson

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In this week’s World in Words podcast: after the Tucson shootings, we hear from Dutch and German journalists about political discourse and violence in their countries. Also, Obama’s oratory in Tucson gets high marks from commentators on both left and right. Plus, an exploration of the term “blood libel.” If Sarah Palin had known exactly what it meant, would she still have used it?

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Lesbians oppose memorial to gay Holocaust victims

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A memorial to honor Germany’s gay Holocaust victims is being opposed by an unlikely group. Daniel Estrin reports that the controversy is that the memorial ignores Lesbians who also suffered under the Nazis. Download MP3

Video: The gay memorial monument movie

Eastern Europe’s ‘Bloodlands’

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The opening of Soviet and East European archives has provided historians a tidal wave of new information about the crimes of Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Brigid McCarthy reports on one historian’s work. Download MP3
Excerpt of Timothy Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’

Pink Triangle survivor speaks out

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The man believed to be the last surviving person sent to a concentration camp for being a homosexual decided to speak out. He’s 97 now, and has just published a book about his experience. The World’s Genevieve Oger has more.
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• More on the Pink Triangle
• Last Known Gay Holocaust Survivor Speaks Out in New Interview

How Germans remember the past

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On a day when we’re remembering soldiers and wars, it’s also useful to think about how we remember. In Germany, memory of the past is often painful: two world wars, the Holocaust, the Berlin Wall. Now, Germans are again thinking about how they remember these events. Writer Alissa Quart visited a couple of museums in Berlin. Download MP3(Photo: Gerry Hadden)

• Neues Museum
• Berlin-based Yiddishkeit band ‘Jewdyssee’
• Berlin Wall graffiti

Commemorating the beginning of WW2

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This week’s podcast explores clashing interpretations of what went wrong in 1939. We talk to Holocaust survivors too. And Marco Werman has a musical footnote to our coverage of the history and politics of the African country of Gabon.

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Dutch cartoon trial

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An Arab organization is to be put on trial in the Netherlands over its publication of a cartoon which questions the Holocaust. The Arab European League (AEL) said the decision to prosecute illustrated bias against Muslims. It said the same standards were not applied to the Dutch politician Geert Wilders (pictured), who made a film including cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports. Download MP3

• BBC coverage
• Arab European League
• Latest global political cartoon slideshow on The World
• More global political cartoons on The World

The History of Polish Jews

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Construction has just started in Warsaw on the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. It will not simply be a museum about the Holocaust. The museum team wants to focus more broadly on centuries of Jewish life and achievements in Poland. Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska has our story. Her report was produced with the help of Feet in Two Worlds, a project of the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School.

New Polish museum to celebrate Jewish life

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There’s a new Jewish museum being built in Warsaw. It’s not a Holocaust remembrance musem. It’s dedicated to the centuries of Jewish life and culture in Poland. Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska has the story.

President Obama in Germany

President Obama was in Germany today where he met with Chancellor Angela Merkel and visited Buchenwald, the site of a Nazi concentration camp. The World’s Jane Little reports from Dresden. Listen