The Liberation of the Camps
The End of the Holocaust and its Aftermath
Yale University Press 2015
New Books in European StudiesNew Books in Genocide StudiesNew Books in German StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Military HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books Network August 25, 2015 Kelly McFall
Every year I ask my students to tell me when the Holocaust ended. Most of them are surprised to hear me say that it has not yet.
Today’s podcast is the fourth of a summer long series of podcasts about the system of camps and ghettos that pervaded Nazi Germany, its satellite states and the regions it controlled. Earlier this summer I talked with Geoff Megargee about the Holocaust Museum’s Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, Sarah Helm about the women’s camp of Ravensbruck and Nik Wachsmann about the evolution of the concentration camp system. I’ll conclude the series in a few weeks with an interview with Shelly Cline about the female guards who staffed some of the camps.
In this fourth episode, Dan Stone makes a convincing case that the Holocaust reverberated for years after the war came to a close. The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and its Aftermath (Yale University Press, 2010),is slender but packed with information and insights. It certainly provides a top-down discussion of the issues and challenges that accompanied the dissolution of the camp system. He makes clear the various policies adopted by the liberating countries and how these were caught up in both domestic and international politics. But it goes beyond this to offer a wide variety of anecdotes and perspectives of camps survivors and liberators demonstrating the long-lasting impact of their experiences. It’s a perfect example of the kind of integrated history of the Holocaust that Nik Wachsmann identified in his discussion.