Ep. 36- Visiting Holocaust sites with Stuart Bertie, Mary Brazier, and Lesley Moore

What is it like to visit a Nazi extermination camp or even a Holocaust site in general?  Last year, I was fortunate enough to travel to Poland with three friends to a number of camps and Holocaust-related sites and museums.  I thought I would do something different in this episode and invite them to talk about their experiences.

Stuart Bertie is an architect and photographer with strong family connections to WW2. He has photographed for the National WW2 Museum, and is currently working on the Band of Brothers Currahee to Normandy documentary project.

Mary Brazier is a Mental Health Social Worker in the NHS with an MA in military history and a special interest in psychiatry in the Second World War.

Lesley Moore is an accountant that is interested in the history of the Holocaust during WW2, in particular Operation Reinhard. She has recently starting guiding Holocaust tours in Krakow, Poland

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.

Transcript

Waitman Beorn (00:01.037)
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Holocaust History Podcast. I'm your host, Waidman Bourne, and today we're doing something a bit different. I was really, really fortunate to have three great friends ask me to take them on a bit of a Holocaust tour of Poland. And they thought, I think it's a great idea that it would be really interesting to sort of have an episode where, you know, real people, like most of the listeners, not people who sort of specialize in this, in studying this topic.

reflect on what it was like to visit really a wide variety of different kinds of places. And I will say also that, you know, as someone who studies this kind of thing, it was really cool for me to visit some of these places with people that hadn't been there before and sort of see them again and differently through their eyes. So I am joined with two of my incredibly wonderful friends or three of my incredible wonderful friends.

Stu, Mary, and Leslie. So Stu, Mary, and Leslie, thank you so much for coming.

Stuart B (01:03.826)
Thank you for having us.

Mary Brazier (01:04.027)
for having us, Weyman.

Lesley (01:04.325)
Thank you.

Waitman Beorn (01:05.741)
And I thought maybe, you you can each start with introduce yourself really quickly and then, you know, kind of how did you become interested in this? Because for most of you, I think maybe it wasn't sort of a lifelong interest maybe, but you know, this is something that sort of developed organically and then it led to this trip. So whoever wants to go first.

Mary Brazier (01:29.566)
Shall I go first? So I'm Mary Braziut, I'm one of Waightman's three friends that he's just introduced. I only have three friends. I'm one of Waightman's friends. I suppose my interest, I just completed a master's in Second World War studies, just for fun. I do have a day job doing something very different. And the Holocaust was part of that. So my interest is more generally in the Second World War and my specialist area is psychiatry in the Second World War.

Stuart B (01:29.69)
on it. Yeah, go for it.

Waitman Beorn (01:35.339)
I only have three friends.

Lesley (01:35.691)
you

Mary Brazier (01:59.324)
And I don't think you can study the Second World War without understanding the part that the Holocaust played in that and the Holocaust as a war aim of Nazi Germany. So for me, had when we were undertaking this trip, I had a Holocaust module and an essay to write. So I was also thinking about that and mindful of that throughout. But for me, it's the role that the Holocaust plays as part of the the wider Second World War and the war aims of Germany.

Stuart B (02:30.984)
I can go next. Yes, I'm Stuart Bertie. I'm an architect and photographer. That's what I do now. I guess my interests really started with the Second World War at quite a young age. I have a lot of family members that served in the Second World War and the First World War. And when you're involved in that and you research what those people did,

you get to know a little bit about other aspects of the war. And as Mary said, you know, the Holocaust is always that thing, is always that thing that you kind of keep coming back to because it has a very kind of different character, I think, to a lot of the other parts of the war. And it's always kind of always been there, but it's kind of amplified a bit when I went to see, when I went to the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Daniel Leapskin's museum. And that sets up quite an interesting series of spaces that you can inhabit. And each one is designed to give you kind of a different feeling. And there's a kind of a journey through that museum. And on the back of that, I did a visit to Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau probably about 15 years ago. And those places kind of

stick with you, but I kind of tend to look at them in a slightly different way, probably related to the architecture that I work in. So I'm kind of always seeing places in a slightly different way. So to have the opportunity to go with someone like Waikman and Lesley and Mary to explore different places that are of the same, you know, have the same things happen there and the same events.

was something I couldn't turn down. So yeah, very pleased that we went on that journey.

Lesley (04:33.79)
Hi, I'm Leslie, also Wakeman's friend. I first became interested in the Holocaust probably when I read about it at school. And then over the years I've picked up books from the library. Just fascinated by the topic because I just can't believe what really happened, why it happened, who would do this. And every time I read about it, despite reading hundreds of books and obviously visiting sites now, I still sort of find it incredible. So that's really how I got into it.

And in the last year, I've just become a guide for leisure and guide tours in Poland and Krakow. So that was even more interesting for us to go there and learn more, to get a background of the other camps so that we can use it with my guiding in the future.

Waitman Beorn (05:19.745)
Yeah, that's really good. And it's really neat to see everyone coming from a slightly different place, because I think that really sort of bore itself out on the trip itself. Can someone sort of give us a sense of, because we were sort of fast and furious going lots of different places. What was the itinerary, if anybody remembers what we sort of did in order just to give our listeners a sense of?

Lesley (05:48.942)
Do want me to run through it? What do you want me show you? Well, we flew into Warsaw first of all, and we explored the Warsaw uprising while we were there. And then we went off to Treblinka death camp. Then we went off to Lublin, I think, and we went to Modenek death camp the next day. let's just go check it. Stayed overnight in Zimorsz and we went on to Belzec and then we went to Sobibor, think, and then we went down to Auschwitz at the end.

Stuart B (05:49.368)
Yeah, yeah, go, yeah. No, no, you do it, you do it.

Waitman Beorn (06:19.757)
Right. in there also we hit Poizhoff, think, and the Polin Museum as well in Warsaw. So several museums, several camps and those kind of things. So it was, and we did it, what, like five days. was something like a thousand kilometers of sort of driving from place to place, which actually worked out fine.

Lesley (06:29.144)
Yep.

Waitman Beorn (06:48.257)
We didn't hate each other after being stuck in a car together for five days. That was great. So one of the questions that I sort of thought about when I was thinking about this episode is how did your assumptions or preconceived notions about what this trip would be like compare to sort of the reality of it?

Mary Brazier (07:16.894)
think, should we start with kind of even thinking about the trip? So before we arrived in Poland, we had a WhatsApp, everyone has to have a WhatsApp group for everything, don't they? So we had a WhatsApp group for planning this trip and we had a WhatsApp group that Waikman wasn't involved with. So we had the one with Waikman and the one without Waikman. And what we were talking about a little bit was, other than what we were packing and how cold it was going to be, was what we thought our emotional response.

Waitman Beorn (07:20.193)
Yeah.

Lesley (07:33.575)
Yeah.

Mary Brazier (07:44.68)
to this trip would be because there's a little bit like you're making yourself emotionally vulnerable because you don't know how you are going to respond. You know, we all knew a little bit and we were going there with a sense of curiosity, but we didn't know what to expect and how we would feel. And so we did have a little bit of a conversation about how do you think we'll cope and how will we support each other? Because although we're friends,

We'd never been on a holiday together before. We'd never spent a week in each other's company before. So did we know each other well enough to be emotionally vulnerable? And if we were distressed or upset, how do we support each other? So there was a little bit of having that conversation and feeling safe enough to have that conversation to say, I don't know how I'm going to respond to this.

And one of the things I'd say if anyone else is thinking of doing a trip like that is think about who you're going with. Because I don't know that this was a really powerful trip for me and I don't know that I would have had the same experience if I'd gone with other people. So I was very lucky to go with you three because we were a very safe, emotionally safe group and the way we could trust each other in terms of if one of us was responding to something, it was a case of a

they need some time. But it was having the opportunity to think about that before. I think that was quite important and having that conversation and feeling safe enough to have that conversation was really important for me.

Stuart B (09:10.735)
it

Stuart B (09:17.434)
Yeah, I think that's really important. I think it's the people you go with and the number of people you go with. Because we went there, I think, knowing that we would spend most of the time trying to understand what we looking at as a group rather than just kind of individuals. And I think with Waiteman being the glue that kind of joined together, we kind of felt...

safe enough that we could ask probably quite difficult questions and we had someone there that would give us an answer or an opinion or on a view on what we were looking at and that was actually really important because I think with places like these and perhaps it's a kind of a comment on the modern world there's a little bit of you see things very superficially

You go to places, you get taken around, you look at things and then you go, that was a certain kind of experience and then you go again. Whereas because we had our own itinerary and we could work at our own pace, we could decide how much time we spent at a place. And if someone had a particular kind of question or notice something particular, because we all notice different things, we all take different things and places.

I think as a group we could then have a discussion about it. I think that, you know, as Mary said, if you're going to choose to go on something like this, have to know that those people are going to respond and interact in the right way.

Lesley (11:02.39)
I think that's absolutely right. And I hadn't actually really considered how we'd all been together, but I think you're right, Mary. And I know when we were in Treblinka, we all could just go off and walk around if we wanted to. Obviously, I'd had a deaf in my family recently, and I did actually go and listen to some music quietly on my own because obviously being in such a place reminded me of other current things going on. But at no time did I think you weren't all there to be with me. And you're right about the

It wasn't like a traditional tour where we would go around and say, this is what happened here, this is this. We would just so go and look and reflect and people would comment on what they found. Weber would give us any historical facts if we needed it. But it was more, we talked a lot about how we felt when we were there. I mean, especially that moment, you remember when we were at the north of Treblinka and it started to snow, that moment, I mean.

Waitman Beorn (11:56.717)
Thank

Lesley (11:58.03)
just magical, you won't get that on a, you know, I don't think you could ever recreate that. And it wouldn't have been the same without you guys for definite.

Mary Brazier (12:04.316)
Yeah.

Mary Brazier (12:08.442)
Absolutely and there's and Stuart there is our photographer, not our photographer, happened to be a photographer who was recording that and Stuart's such a skilled photographer and he brings that sense of emotion through in his photography and there's a photograph that I think you shared quite widely Stuart and it's of us walking through the forest towards the

the work camp cemetery rather than the extermination camp area of Treblinka. Leslie and I are walking through the snow and it's a photograph you've taken from quite a way behind us and it's such an evocative photograph. It brings with it such a sense of place and the phrase that

that I kept returning to is the whole genius loci theory of that sense of place, which I think we got everywhere we went in a slightly different way. whenever I see that photograph of Leslie and I, that kind of takes me back to what we were feeling as the snow has started to come down and it's freezing cold and we're trying to get a sense of exactly what happened at Treblinka. Because I think what's powerful about

the camps, the Reinhard camps that we were visiting is there's very little there because of the nature of them. It was a case of they did their job, which was extermination, and then they were raised to the ground. it's having the trying to get a sense of, OK, what actually happened here? We know thousands of people died here very deliberately and very clinically were killed. But how did it happen? Because generally there isn't

there aren't the buildings left in most of the places we visited. So it's trying to get a sense of them. And that was where Wakeman's knowledge was really important of trying to explain, well, this is we think this is the railway line, but was it really here? And that came in and we don't really know. And we'll never because of the nature of the place and the respect for the Jewish faith that they aren't there haven't been examinations of the ground. It has been left.

Mary Brazier (14:26.876)
And that in itself is very powerful. It's almost mystical. Without trying to be a little bit overblown about it, the forest around Treblinka, there's just something that feels different about it there. And was an incredibly powerful emotion. And that was the first place we visited, wasn't it, after we'd been to Warsaw. And it was kind of jumping in at the deep end, almost, going to Treblinka.

Waitman Beorn (14:46.892)
Yeah.

Stuart B (14:51.004)
It was, and probably out of all of the places that I was kind of most nervous about, I think was Treblinka, just because of the name, that word. It appears in so many texts and it's something that a lot of people have heard of, but...

until you've been there you're never quite sure what to expect and you know as you say Mary even though there's there's not a huge amount there there is there is enough there to know that something happened you know there's there are a few kind of foundations of buildings and you know related to the kind of work camp but

that sense of place really kind of comes through. I'd be interested to know if you went there having no knowledge of where you are, how you would feel about it. That's always something we kind of talk about and teach in architectures about how places affect you. Because you know when you walk into a church, for example, that space tells you to be quiet. You know, don't...

It's either something in us or it's something that can learn, but the place tells you something about how to behave. And I got that from Treblinka as well. And even though it's almost the opposite of a church, it's an open space in a forest. when I took that photograph, as you said, it was snowing. There's a particular way you should or you can take a photograph with snow in order to

really convey the snowfall that's happening, know, various kind of settings on camera. And sometimes you can focus on the snowflake, sometimes, you know, that's close to you, sometimes you can focus on the object. And then when I saw you and Leslie kind of framed in that kind of opening, it was sort of an echo, I suppose. It was two human beings, you know, in a place which probably looked like that before anything happened there. And we'd revisited it in the place where...

Stuart B (17:05.684)
as it perhaps looked before. the trip is kind of full of those moments for different reasons. And when you're experiencing it through a camera lens, you get a different perspective on it. Because my brain is kind of always sort of half in photographic mode. You're kind of always kind of scanning to kind of look for moments or objects or something interesting that kind of captures the...

spirit of the place and Leslie and Mary did it pretty well.

Waitman Beorn (17:41.325)
And I will say it was great just as the person who was functioning as a guide, I guess, to have three people that were really, really, really interested so that we could just go to all the places. There was no sort of like, let's go back to the hotel and have dinner kind of. For example, I'd never been to Dribblinka 1. And so I was seeing that as well for the first time. And we could sort of.

Lesley (17:41.609)
I think.

Waitman Beorn (18:09.709)
wander all the way around the sites rather than, you know, these sort of bus tours that sort of take you in and like run you up and down something and then take you to the next place. you know, so think that was for me, that was also really interesting because I could, you know, we could take our time and I knew that everyone was sort of, nobody was really getting antsy about leaving and that kind of thing. So that was, that was really useful. Sorry, Leslie, you were going to say something.

Lesley (18:31.34)
I was just going to say of all of the Reinhard camps that we went to, found Treblinka was the calmest. It was peaceful, tranquil. And what struck me of those Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec particularly was how quiet they were, in particular of number of visitors, because we've all heard of Auschwitz. And if you go there, there's so many people. I've been there three times this year and it's just, it's so busy now with their new visitor centre, which is great. And it's great people go.

But when we were at Treblinka, we probably saw one other large group, didn't we? And then a handful of people, maybe 10. mean, Sobibor, there was definitely two or three people. And the same at Belzec. We probably saw no more than five the whole time we were there. And that's what struck me, that people don't visit these other camps so much. I don't know, you also had a better time to reflect because it was so quiet. There was no one there. You could sort of stand and take it all in and...

just think and, you know, that was what struck me the most particularly there and having watched the Robert Rinder program where he went to Treblinka to actually go and see if it really was how he had sort of shown on the program. And it was calm. think, I hope during the podcast, we could talk about how all of the camps memorialize in a different way because they were all quite a stark contrast of Treblinka in particularly.

the they had just the name of the town that the transports had come from on the stones and only the one name, which wait a minute, you'll be able to tell us the chap who his name was on one stone.

Waitman Beorn (20:06.733)
Yeah, that's of course Shaq.

Lesley (20:09.728)
I thought that was a really nice way that they had done it. Everything about Treblinka was very peace, very nice way to memorialise, I thought, but not quite the same, I thought, in the other places.

Waitman Beorn (20:20.109)
Yeah. And I guess that that leads to sort of the question that I was, that was sort of leaning to, before, which is, you know, how did your imagination of what these places would be like contrast or compare with the actual experience? Like, did you have, did you have preconceived notions about the trip and about what was going to be like, or what you're going to experience that were correct or incorrect or mixed bag or.

Mary Brazier (20:52.36)
I don't think I had preconceived ideas. mean, I'd seen the same programme, the Rob Rinder programme, so I'd seen that, but they'd gone in the summer. So I don't know if that made it feel a little bit different, but it is, it's a very stark place and a very quiet place. And I think that the differences, as Leslie said, what I found jarring and we'll come to talk about.

Stuart B (20:52.446)
I don't...

Mary Brazier (21:20.008)
how different Auschwitz, Birkenau is, and Auschwitz 1 are to visit than the other camps. because I found that quite jarring, because everywhere else we visit was so quiet, and there was the time for reflection. And we weren't rushed. And we could walk around at our own pace, go by ourselves, and be there for as long as we needed to be, and reflect in our own ways. And that was really important. But I didn't go with any preconceived ideas of what it was going to be like, I must admit.

Stuart B (21:49.072)
No, I didn't either. They said I've been to Amersfitz and Birkenau before, but I think all I knew is that we were going to be spending time during the day confronting quite difficult subjects and quite difficult things to comprehend and understand. But they...

I didn't know how they were going to be introduced to each place because you can do research and look on Google Earth, but you can't ever replace setting foot on a piece of ground. And you have to feel it, you have to understand it. Even just, know, even the almost topographical differences between the places, you you've got...

know, our schütz is relatively flat, you've got Modarnak, which kind of gradually runs up a slope. Belzec is more extreme. And even those just those kind of changes in the underlying kind of topography changes a place. And then when you're there and then you learn a bit more about it. you know, I remember, you know, Belzec, you know, as it runs up the hill, there's sort of quite a, there's quite a kind of a drop on one side, which

kind of formed part of a route and then some of the of the flatter area, you know, as where the of the holding centre was and, know, Waikman and I had a wander around the building that we tried to work out on the site, what it was used for and, you know, after sort of 20 minutes we'd sort of come to a conclusion. So I think in some ways it helped me not having a preconceived idea because you can, you take each site and you experience each site when you're there and the various

various aspects that related to it. I was always trying to understand the layout of a place, the relationship of where the prisoners were, where the guards were, where the commandants were, and how all that worked. I think it was good to almost have a clean slate and to experience it in that way.

Lesley (24:08.888)
For me, think my, I was just going to say my preconceived notions were really just about the location of the camps because being Reinhard camps, knew I'd read quite a lot about them and I knew that they were going to be quite remote. And I think when we drove to Sobibor, it took us a long time to get there that afternoon. And I remember it was a really beautiful part of Poland. The drive there was spectacular. We saw hardly any cars on the road. The forests were beautiful. And then when we arrived there.

Mary Brazier (24:09.57)
I sorry Leslie.

Lesley (24:38.606)
what struck me, and I did actually find it quite haunting was just how remote it was, how isolated, but then when we got out of the car and the train tracks are there and there's a modern railway sign saying stoppable, which you just think is incredible really. they're still on the main line now, but obviously for a very good reason why it had to be, but it was so isolated. And so really that did confirm to me exactly what I'd read about.

So was good to see the ground and actually experience that. But conversely, when we went to Modenic, I remember we'd stayed in Lublin for the night, lovely city, we loved it. And then I again thought we'd be traveling for a while. We hadn't even left the town and I thought we were driving past a nice park on our right, but no, that was the camp. And just so near to the town, obviously not a death camp, a concentration camp, a labor camp. So I guess that is the differentiation.

And there's one overriding factor that I still can't get out of my head. And I've even found articles written about this online. And that's when we went around Modenic and the sprawling metropolis that overlooks the camp to this day. It's probably built up around it since. And there's a gate through where people come and walk their dog and you know, their apartments look over what's quite an intact camp. And I just think.

Who in this, you know, who 2024, who lives in apartment and they open their curtains and that's their view. I mean, I don't know. just, I can't fathom that. Obviously people do and they don't have an issue with it. I don't know if I could do that. So the location for me was really what was the striking thing. And most of the camps did sort of stand up to the remoteness that I expected, but Modenic was quite a shock for how near to the town it was.

Mary Brazier (26:28.916)
And what was jarring for me also was how small they are. not a genic, as obviously as Leslie's just said, is a concentration camp. So it's bigger, but the Reinhard camps pretty much had a single purpose. So they didn't need huge accommodation blocks. So Belzec, particularly the size, the footprint of Belzec, I can't even pronounce it properly, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka was...

how clinical it was in terms of, and how efficient it was in terms of layout of railway, exit, ramp, chambers. And the thought given to, particularly at Sobibor, it was the thought given to the...

the footpath that took people from the off-ramp to the gas chamber to make sure that everyone stayed calm and there was no sense of where it was they were walking to, but how close everything was and how small the footprint of these camps was. It's very different to, certainly from Birkenau and from Majdeneck, but the Reinhard camps themselves, they're tiny because they had a single purpose and that...

for me really brought it home to how clinical it was and what the purpose of this was. The slave labour is a different aspect, but the purpose of death really, I think, was highlighted by how small these operations were.

Stuart B (27:59.366)
Yeah, I was fascinated by that. And I think when I got home, I did sort of kind of a geeky architecture thing and started to try to understand the scale of these places and did an overlay of Belzec on to Birkenau. And they're almost like kind of almost like they serve two different purposes, although they do and they don't. you know, one is very focused and and also the thing that struck me at Sobibor was

Lesley (28:05.783)
Thank

Stuart B (28:30.502)
having looked at photographs of what was there and comparing it to how they've been kind of excavating and researching it is how it was so incredibly calculating. If you look at, there are certain angles of solvable or certain photos you would look at it and you'd think that's quite a nice little village and you know there's people kind of tending gardens and

Lesley (28:53.452)
Hmm.

Stuart B (28:58.606)
and photograph of officers having fun on some kind of holiday or vacation. But when you then analyse the plan and you see how carefully laid out it is and how it was almost a series of layers of deceit to not cause panic as people came off the trains.

that methodical approach to what they did was quite hard to kind of process. I kind of sort of touched on this on a talk I did which really kind of is a little bit of a window into how the Nazis kind of operated. in some sense it's so incredibly efficient and carefully laid out.

and drawn and planned, know, in some ways you can almost perceive it as a well-managed project, but it's the purpose behind it is, you know, just it's really hard to kind of marry those two together.

Waitman Beorn (30:16.901)
And of course, in the history of it, it's not in some ways well managed. mean, Belzec... mean, Treblinka is sort of a dumpster fire when Strongel gets there. It's being mismanaged. And one of my friends who's also a Holocaust historian, he said we should write a book of the things we still get wrong about the Holocaust. And one of them is this idea of the Nazis as a sort of systematic...

you know, humane almost, right? Because that's their, that was their myth that they created themselves was that we're in some ways, whatever we're doing is this humane process, but actually, you know, throughout its entire existence, you know, at these places when the killing is taking place, there are people running away and people screaming and people being killed in front of each other. And, you know, it's a giant, it is a mess. It's not sort of the lamps of the slaughter. It's not, you know, this

industrial, I it's industrial, I suppose, on the sort of scale of it, but it's not industrial in sort of the clean assembly line sort of process that lots of people like to think it is. And I think one of things that was neat about going with y'all was because we could spend so much time at each site and because you, all three of you were so interested in the spatial element of it.

sort of where are we? What is that? What are we looking at? You know, we all got a better sense of each one of these places. You know, mean, one of the nice things about not being on a tour bus, for example, at Belzec, you know, is that, you know, Stu and I went over to that railway building and just walked around it to figure out what it was. you know, of course, turns out that was a sorting shed for property for people that were murdered at Belzec. And then we went to the

The building used to be the commandant's house and is now sort of the education outreach center. And the woman there was so nice to sort of give us literally like a presentation about, you know, yeah. Yeah.

Mary Brazier (32:26.846)
Can we just highlight though, Waightman, you seem to describe that as if we knew it was the education centre. What Waightman actually did was walk up to a house that we'd worked out was the commandant's house as Leslie and I are trying to hide behind a lamp post and pretend we didn't know you. And you knocked on the door of this house that we'd kind of, we were doing the then and now comparison with photos and worked out well that house is where the commandant's house was. And we were like, that's nice, but you know.

Waitman Beorn (32:34.877)
No, I didn't.

Lesley (32:43.629)
Hahaha

Mary Brazier (32:55.828)
don't knock on the door. And you went up and knocked on the door and Stuart was kind of a little bit behind you and no idea whose house it was. And it was just completely random that it turned out to be the education centre for the site. And she was incredibly welcoming. I think the fact that you could drop your name and she'd heard of you and you said, no, I've written some books. I am who I say I am. but it was incredibly powerful.

Lesley (32:59.433)
Ha

Mary Brazier (33:20.616)
there wasn't another school group there. So she gave us a PowerPoint presentation, didn't she, on the site, which was incredibly powerful. So yeah, if anyone's planning a trip like that, take a waitman with you, because it's really handy for getting local historians to then talk to you a little bit more and give you access to things you wouldn't have access to otherwise.

Lesley (33:32.672)
Hahaha

Lesley (33:42.318)
We were a bit worried though, weren't we, Mary? Yeah, we thought they were going to be told off.

Mary Brazier (33:44.468)
We were hiding behind a lamppost,

Waitman Beorn (33:51.213)
Well, I mean, it's just, you know, I, I'm always fascinated by what remains. And, know, it's both at Sobibor and at Belzec, you know, there are buildings, you know, they're perpetrator spaces, but, you know, the commandant's house at Sobibor is still there as well, you know, and so, and the train station at Sobibor, I think is the train station from, from the wartime period. And so, you know, there's something about,

about seeing those spaces. mean, it's similar to, you know, Amon Guth's house at Poizhoff, you know, that these spaces still exist. And again, you know, one of the things that is always sort of fascinating, yet inexplicable to me is sort of how you live in a space like that. Because, you know, these people are living literally, I mean, in the camp for all intents and purposes.

You know, there's an amazing book that I'll plug called spaces of Tripolinka and and Jacob flaws, the author will be a guest on this podcast. But one of the things he does that I haven't seen done before is he really dives into, for example, things like smell and and just how powerful the horrible odors coming out of Tripolinka were. And and literally, you know, they they permeated every space in the, know,

within a couple of miles of the place. And so you can imagine what it's like to live at ground zero, you know, and I guess, and I'll be quiet, but I mean, I'm always interested in just, you know, how does that work for human beings? just seems like a very, a very difficult sort of thing to get used to.

Mary Brazier (35:39.592)
It's a strange rationalisation, isn't it? And I think we're coming as visitors to this thing happened here. And as Leslie said, at Lublin, you've got apartments that are pretty much looking into the access into the gas chambers.

And how do you rationalize that on a day-to-day basis? Do you eventually, does familiarity almost breed contempt for where it is you're living and what's being memorialized there? And I think, was it the Commandant's house at Sobibor that's on the market for sale at the moment and is actually quite expensive? And it's, well, who would want to buy that? Who would want to live there? But it's a normal house. And...

And just do you pretend that what's next door in the museum and actually what happened there is just something that is in another time and is almost in another place. You know, it's the past, that's different. But the other thing I was very mindful of is that we were looking at locations of the Holocaust. As you've said, we were very focused on the sense of place.

And I had to because I'd been only just studying that the Holocaust module of the the masters I was doing it. So that was Professor Dieter Steiner taught that module. So we were talking a lot about the Holocaust by bullets and Babi Yar in particular. We spent a lot of time thinking about that, whether it is there the same sense of place where, you know, in terms of the perpetration of the Holocaust in that way. So it was all.

I was trying to find a balance and kind of reconcile that, okay, this is placing the Holocaust in specific locations, but also knowing that this wasn't the totality of how the Holocaust was perpetrated. Actually, there's a whole other Holocaust by bullets that isn't memorialised in the same way. And how do we think about that? Are we thinking about that when we're visiting these places? Are we memorialising the Holocaust as a whole, or are we just looking at

Mary Brazier (37:43.422)
this is what happened here and how it was undertaken in this specific location. it's, I found it quite complex, I must admit, and I'm still digesting it and finding it quite complex.

Waitman Beorn (38:00.417)
Yeah, how did you take...

Lesley (38:00.526)
think it's interesting that you say about, I was just going say about the smell that you just said about. I don't know you've seen that the program has just come out on Prime from called The Commandant's Son and it's Rudolf Hess' son. And he goes back to Auschwitz and he meets a survivor. And he was about five, I think when he was living in the house, obviously the villa there, but he said, he didn't notice anything, didn't see anything. But like you said, the smell would have been horrific and the smoke would have been quite substantial as well, like in the Zone of Interest film.

And that's something to consider too, isn't it? Not just the sights, but the smells. I think that a lot of the people who live near the camps would have commented on that because people talk about did they know? And they said they did know because of all those things as well.

Waitman Beorn (38:46.785)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, and I think that's that's something that's was interesting too. And I'd love to hear what you sort of your thoughts were because and Mary touched us a little bit, you know, looking looking at the site in the in the modern time, right, because the sites, all the sites sort of exist in multiple time periods, depending on sort of how you're approaching it. But they also exist today. And people, you know, Polish people who live nearby are

going about their daily lives and interacting or not with these places.

Lesley (39:22.722)
Yeah, for sure. mean, when I did one of the tours around Alstruz this year, I was asking the guide about some of the houses that were just beyond the two crematorias at the north of the Birkenau. And you can see a few houses just beyond the gate. And I said to him, who lives there? And I think some of his relatives had lived there. And he or they had lived very near to the camp. And I said, why did they stay? Why did they not move away? And he said, well, firstly, they just couldn't afford to or they didn't want to.

But it was just, that was just their life and they wanted to go back to it afterwards. And, you know, they were near to the camp, but it's an interesting question for definite. mean, in the, like the house in Plashoff, the villa has been renovated to quite a high standard now, hasn't it? And it's lived in, and the same at Mauthausen, the Goosen camp nearby, the villa there, that's been renovated several times. They even added new balconies and

It's extraordinary that question who would live here nowadays. I don't know.

Stuart B (40:26.568)
I think it probably, A, depends on your knowledge of the subject and your views and opinion on it. there's something that I'm quite interested in anyway and want to research more. But the way that we use those buildings in the world of the Holocaust, some of those buildings are very prominent and very well known.

And we as human beings generally make our mark on earth by building things. And they outlive generations. So they become like waypoints or markers in people's lives. And also maybe in a strange pilgrimage because they're places that you can visit and you know that you're there because you can see it and you can...

touch bricks or plaster work or door handles. And if they are the original pieces of the building, you're kind of passing over and touching the same things that very bad evil people also interacted with. So when you kind of talk about the houses and you say, could you live there? I think it's

I think it's A, it's kind of your knowledge of it, but B, it's what has happened to those buildings since I think when we were outside of Amon Gertz's house, it had been completely renovated. So it wouldn't surprise me if you walked in that house and nothing was original. So there's almost kind of another layer of modern history that's gone in front of it, which you could argue is almost like a

a kind of a barrier or a layer that kind of takes away the you know the history of that house but that conversely you know those bricks that the house has been built with are always going to be there. I'm not sure we came to a conclusion about what it would be like to to live in that place but I'm always fascinated how a building, particularly those buildings, can take you straight to a point in history.

Stuart B (42:45.736)
I was doing some research for another talk and there's a house which is a modern house. I'm guessing it was built in the 1980s or 90s. And it sits just outside one of the spurs or the spur that was built in 1944 to bring the Hungarian Jews in off the railway line. And some of that path, some of that line kind of still exists, but some of it doesn't. But I noticed that the driveway that was in front of it

the owners or the person that built it had actually marked that line through kind of different coloured bricks. And so they had recognised the place that they were in. They were still prepared to build a house there and live there. But there was a nod to understanding of how that route and that mark in the earth is almost kind of seared into the earth. it it becomes such a powerful, powerful line that shouldn't be forgotten.

And when you interact and you see those things, think that's what really kind of connects me to a place. You look at a brick or you look at a piece of timber or look at a screw that's been attached to that building. Someone has made that, possibly a prisoner, possibly, you know, workman. And I think there's a lot to be kind of learned and understood by how we look at places and how we...

how we make pilgrimages to those places. And it's not a pilgrimage as in a worship, it's almost a pilgrimage of understanding. And I also wonder what draws us to those places? Why do we go? I mean, you could have probably a 10 hour podcast on the philosophy of human interaction with historic places, but...

It's kind of fascinating that the four of us decided that we wanted to go and do that and see those places and experience.

Waitman Beorn (44:45.709)
Well, think that's a good segue into sort of maybe getting a little more in detail about, you know, what were some of the specific things at various sites that were particularly meaningful or even things you didn't like? mean, I understand, you know, I live in the world of scare quotes where, you know, I can have an extermination center or a concentration camp that I find in some ways more meaningful than another. And that doesn't mean that one is better or worse than the other.

but, know, were there places that you sort of, that really hits you in certain ways, where there are places where you felt more uncomfortable or less uncomfortable, you know, what, what was sort of, what are your reflections having been to probably more, you know, concentration camps, certainly more extermination centers and most people who aren't, who are, you know, who aren't historians, right? mean, like you've been to more than most people, you know,

What was your thoughts? mean, how do you remember these places?

Mary Brazier (45:51.604)
I found my most difficult place was Auschwitz, Auschwitz 1. And I know we talked a little bit about this at the time and as Leslie set out our itinerary at the beginning of the talk and we went to Auschwitz last and I'm really glad we did it that way. I'm really glad it was the last place we visited because I wonder how I would have experienced the other nights if I'd been to Auschwitz first. I'd never been there before. And

As we've said, most of the other places we went to, if we weren't the only people there, there was maybe one other tour group and we barely overlapped. So we had plenty of time, space, we weren't rushed. And Auschwitz is heaving. I kind of, without kind of sounding too derogatory, and apologies to anyone involved with Auschwitz Museum who listens, but I found it almost like theme park Holocaust.

because it's managing so many visitors, it has to be so much more organised. And you go around with the local guide, the actual Auschwitz guide, and you're with a large tour group and you're going around at quite a rapid pace. And there are lots of other people walking around with you. And I found it really quite claustrophobic, particularly going around the buildings at Auschwitz 1. And I struggled, actually probably...

shouldn't admit this, I actually let, I had to step away, I had to leave the group because I felt too claustrophobic because there were too many people and the behaviour of some of the other people in the groups, people taking selfies. There's a small gas chamber at Auschwitz 1 and it's obviously a gas chamber and there are signs outside saying please respect what this place is, please don't, please put your phones away, please stay silent and people still take selfies and are talking.

and giggling with each other in this gas chamber at Auschwitz 1. And it's just incredibly jarring and partly, possibly more so because of everything else we'd experienced leading up to that visit. I found the behaviour of some of the other visitors quite intolerable and I had to rationalise it and I know we talked about this a lot afterwards and I had to rationalise it and think of all those thousands of people that come through Auschwitz every day, of a tiny proportion of them.

Mary Brazier (48:11.742)
take something meaningful away with them, then it's worth it. But I'm mindful that it's kind of crack off is lots of people go to crack off for a weekend. It's a lovely city to visit. And going to Auschwitz is one of the things you do when you go to crack off. It's one of the things that's on offer in the local tour places. So there are plenty of people who perhaps aren't as aware as we are. So I was trying not to be too precious about it. And I know I'm sounding very precious that we were almost

better visitors than some of the others, but it felt, I found it quite jarring, I must admit.

Lesley (48:47.32)
For me, the place that stood out was Belzec because, and I wanted to say about how places are memorialized, I just found Belzec so striking. It's haunting. It's a great big field where it's like almost a stadium. It raises up this slope. There's just, the whole area is just black lava rock, which is very harsh. And there's a lot of twisted rebar metal, just dark, rusty, aggressive looking.

I found the whole site standing there compared to all of the others and of all the others I've ever been to since. I felt awkward. I didn't think it was a very nice memorial. And then you've got the pathway in the middle with between some big walls that shows where the path to the gas chambers was. But it did everything you would expect. Perhaps it should do because it did make me feel awkward. did, you know, really make me feel the horror of what happened. And I suppose.

Places like Drupalinka was, I think for me, more a place to reflect and remember the people in a much more peaceful way. But Belzec was the stark reality of the atrocities. And that for me, I still can't get over it. Every time I think of it, all I can see is that black lava and the twisted metal. And I just think, yeah, I won't forget that place. That's the one that really probably moved me the most.

Stuart B (50:14.96)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that was, there had been a lot of kind of a lot of work and a lot of thought had gone and gone into that. And I in some ways, I think it's very appropriate that it makes you feel awkward. And it's it's, as you say, it's it's very aggressive and it leaves you in no doubt that nothing good happened here.

And I think as humans we kind of we need to feel those places and I think that's what memorials should do. They should try and reflect the events at certain spaces. you know and it's quite a small site but in some ways the memorial is kind of monumental because it is the whole site. And there's you get a little bit of that at Sobibor as well. I was quite fascinated how they were

Lesley (51:00.088)
Mm.

Stuart B (51:07.938)
almost kind of repairing or rebuilding or interacting with that site, with the new museum. And from my background, I was kind of fascinated about how you might even approach designing something like that. And the way that they kind of set up this wall, which kind of guided you on the route that people might have taken, I thought was quite powerful. And it was very simple as well.

At Belzec there was also the, there was a big room which had nothing in it, which was basically just kind of finished concrete. And it was really a place of reflection. So you could spend time around looking around the memorial outside and then a place of introspection because any noise you make was amplified several times. So it's getting, it's almost kind of that church effect where the space tells you, you you need to behave in a certain way.

And so I kind of took it, I took a lot of things from many, many other places in different ways. But the thing that I think the thing that really stopped me in my tracks is when we wandered to the back of Birkenau and we went round the Canada site, you know, the receiving centre. And, you know, from the air you've got that kind of familiar grid of huts, but

These ones weren't huts for people to be kept in. These were where the possessions and belongings were deposited and collected. the huts are gone, but the sort of perimeter base blocks and the foundations footings are still there. And, you know, they would have had a suspended floor which sit above them. you kind of, you now have the earth which is exposed. And these objects, the ground gives them up.

ground gives up these objects of people and whether they're of buttons or bottles or anything, each one is a person and I found that extraordinarily powerful. A little bit like the keys as well, the keys that people deposited because you need your front door key, why wouldn't you? You've got to put that in a safe place because you're going to need that when you go back.

Stuart B (53:29.786)
And so I think it was in many ways the Canada space is not curated in any way. It just is. And there were so many thousands and thousands of objects that a lot of them are still there. And then they just appear on the surface. you're just kind of staring at button and you're there's a person right there. And that was really, really powerful, I thought.

Mary Brazier (53:59.758)
And that's, and you mentioned the keys and I think I found any individual item that linked you to a person, I found that more powerful than at Modenic and at Auschwitz where they have the piles and piles of thousands of shoes and suitcases where they're sorting items. I found the museum at Sobibor where they had a lot of individual possessions of some of, think particularly the Dutch

people who arrived there. Like you say, and it's knowing that someone bought their key because they locked their front door. So it's, can almost sense the journey that that person's had and the story that they've been told and told themselves. Have they locked their front door and they put their key in their pocket and they went to the place. And so that key,

apologies if you're hearing a spaniel shaking herself, she's telling me it's time for bed. And it's that an individual item links you to an individual and it's balancing the sense of there was an individual person involved here and yet there was also the vastness and hundreds of thousands and millions of people who were murdered in this way. And then an individual item will take you back to one person. And for me, was that the

the items that took you to this was an individual was then for me much more emotionally powerful than when you saw the vastness because that's more difficult to comprehend. But taking to there was an individual person who went on this journey and they died here and this is what they brought with them, that for me was much more emotionally affecting.

Stuart B (55:45.104)
Yeah, I had, yeah, absolutely. I had a little bit of that from the end of the ramp at Birkenau with two gas chambers that were destroyed and one of them you can clearly, that initial room that you go into as you go down the steps is exposed and you can kind of see into that room and

you've got a set of, I don't know, it's probably about eight or nine steps which take you down into that space. And those steps are totally ordinary. They're kind of concrete slabs with some brickwork around them. Nothing special at all, but they've been made extraordinary by the location that they're in. And you know that they were the last set of steps that many thousands and thousands of people ever stepped down.

And they're the things that they draw you straight in. And if you know some of the history behind it, those ordinary objects just become totally extraordinary.

Mary Brazier (56:53.032)
the other thing, I was writing an essay on the role of Auschwitz in the German war economy and I wanted to visit Monowitz or Auschwitz III, which was the industrial site, so the slave labour element of Auschwitz and almost kind of why it was sited, why it was located where it was. And we went for a bit of a drive, didn't we? Lesley mentioned distance before. And the Monowitz site is again, it's beyond Birkenau.

And we had to drive around a bit to find it. And you think, well, where is it? So, so, Monowitz, the site of the IG Farben works and other industrial sites and all the complexity around kind of what happened to IG Farben and the directors of IG Farben and the link that they had with the Nazi party pre-war. then, and then the role of slave labor in the Holocaust and almost kind of the...

the inherent contradiction between needing the Jews as the slave labor for the economy but also needing to exterminate them. finding the memorial round the back of a mini market, think, wasn't it?

Lesley (58:02.615)
Mm.

Mary Brazier (58:02.84)
memorial to Monovitz. It was hidden, it's not particularly well signposted. The memorial itself was in many ways not very different to other memorials we've seen, but it was very much hidden. It was quite difficult to find, we had to be quite determined. And then we drove around a bit didn't we, around what is a modern industrial estate and that in amongst industrial current factories there are the buildings where slaves

we're working and we're dying and it is that jarring, it's that coexistence that we've referred to before between the then and the now. And it's not preserved in Aspic, it's not kind of a living museum, it's kind of, this happened then.

And we've got Son of Deacon, we had the luxury of Stuart being able to tell us, know, age some of the buildings. No, this is definitely wartime. And some of it was obvious that it was wartime buildings, sort of dilapidated, falling into disrepair right next door to current factories. So it's there's an industrial inherent industrial purpose in this location that from largely was the driving force for the location of Auschwitz here.

And it's still an industrial location, but it's kind of how is it owning, how is it reconciling itself with what happened here 80 years ago? And I found that really, really challenging. I've got all the photos, Stuart took some really good photos that I used in my essay. But it's that jarring nature of that inherent contradiction between the slave labor element of Auschwitz that I found particularly jarring.

Waitman Beorn (59:49.195)
And then there was that, just as a reminder, there was that one sort of dilapidated building that we think was probably a barracks that was kind of off to the side, like in a field, right? And then the rest of the complex, you know, in some sense is kind of intact, you know, and still functioning, still rolling along. it reminded me something you mentioned earlier about the...

Individual objects and the ability of the individual objects to remind us that you know, these were people not just sort of numbers and statistics. It's something that that I always tell my students, which is sort of that It's not it's not six million Jews murdered. It's one Jew being murdered six million times. It's an individual It's an individual act of murder that's continuing on a person that has a life and family and a you job and everything else, you know and

it's very easy to lose sight of that. So I think it's really interesting and appropriate that at places like Soderborg, which does have an amazing little museum in it for the sort of size of the space allocated to it and where it is, that it was these moments of individuality. Even when were at Auschwitz, whenever I go to Auschwitz and I'm looking at the

the suitcases, they have their names and birth dates on them, and that automatically makes them, that's a person, that's a child even. We did go to the Polin Museum in Warsaw as well, which we haven't mentioned yet, which is sort of the history of Polish Jews. And of course it's not just the Holocaust, right? And so one of the things that I think it's always appropriate to go to that before we really saw any of the Holocaust related stuff, because this is an entire culture.

and community of people that is murdered in the places that we were going to see later. And so it's something that sort of helps us to situate that within sort of the mind boggling and almost impossible to sort of comprehend numbers.

Mary Brazier (01:01:58.738)
Yeah, and we should mention we were really lucky because we met up with Alex Ritchie, Dr Alex Ritchie, author of the Warsaw Uprising and a professor of strategy. I'm sure what she's one of the universities in Warsaw and she very graciously gave us some time and showed us around. And we went to the Warsaw Uprising Museum with her. But the polling museum.

was I think it's one of the best museums I've ever been to because I had questions about why were there so many Polish people, there so many Jewish people in Eastern Europe and it tells you. then Alex explaining some of the current politics within Poland about the establishment of the POLIN Museum and the ongoing funding of the POLIN Museum and that these dynamics and the politics have not changed.

and whether the museum may be vulnerable in the future because of the current political issues within Poland. And that was fascinating, but we were really lucky to be able to spend some time with Alex as well in Walsall.

Waitman Beorn (01:03:06.077)
So sort of as we're, as we're coming towards a bit of the end, I guess I'd be interested to know sort of, I know you all said you had no preconceived notions, which sort of sets this question up for failure, I guess. But, you know, what was, what was most surprising for you? you know, going to all these different places. yeah, what did you find to be sort of surprising or unexpected or?

Stuart B (01:03:35.553)
Interestingly, the most surprising thing involved none of the camps that we went to and it involved mostly our journey in between them because there were many kilometres where waitmen had a list of villages and Jewish people that lived in those villages.

and every and we ask Wakeman to do this. That's it. That's it. Okay. So every village we pass through, Wakeman would read out the pre-war population of Jewish people and then the post-war and

Waitman Beorn (01:04:05.825)
This is the Encyclopedia of Camps and Quedas from the Holocaust Museum, by the way.

Stuart B (01:04:22.52)
it was, the numbers were astonishing. know, if a village had, you know, 800 Jewish people in before the war, they'd have like 36 afterwards, or, you know, whatever the number, you know, it's, it's, you know, almost incredible number, fewer. And that was quite, that was quite revealing in itself, but it was, there was another layer on that because that happens village after village after village after village. And

you then get a sense of that these people came from somewhere and these people lived somewhere, they had a life somewhere, they had families, they worked there. it just, I know somehow it made it more visceral to understand the scale of everything because it wasn't just a random figure that was talked about, it was just a figure that

just happened to every single village we passed through. And we covered a thousand kilometers and, you know, there were thousands of villages that we didn't pass through. So I think that was the thing that I think the way that that amplified the scale of it made it understandable. you're understanding populations almost in human size bites. You you can relate to living in a village or a town or whatever.

So to hear that over and over again was pretty shocking really.

Waitman Beorn (01:05:57.099)
Anybody else surprising things or unexpected things?

Mary Brazier (01:05:59.494)
I suppose the surprising thing for me, know, on top of what we've already talked about was, I don't know if surprise is the right word, but relief maybe is how safe we were all together. And actually for four of us who didn't know each other that well before we went and we spent a week together as Stuart's just said, driving a thousand miles and seeing really emotionally affecting things and

that how well we got on together and how well we read each other's moods and how we managed to lift spirits and how we were able to spend our downtime, if you like, sort of being able to digest what we'd seen each day, reflecting appropriately, whatever appropriate means, but reflecting in our own ways. But then being there to support each other and knowing that actually we

we needed to enjoy our time together too. So we were also able to have some fun. And it seems almost a little bit, am I allowed to say that on this podcast? Am I allowed to acknowledge that we spent a week visiting these places where the most unthinkable things happened and millions of people were killed, but we were able to balance that between we needed to stay sane.

and we needed to take care of ourselves and I think we took care of ourselves and we took care of each other and I was just really pleased that we were able to do that.

Lesley (01:07:37.411)
For me, the things that shocked me or just was confirmed from my preconceived notions was, like I said, about the location. It was actually really nice to drive such a vast distance in Poland and to see what a beautiful country it was, how sprawling the countryside is. But really just get a feel for places like Sobibor, how far away they were, as you would expect. It was good to actually go to the ground and see it.

But then I was equally shocked about how near some of the ones in the town were. And also I struck by, I knew about it, but actually seeing how significant the railways were on all of the places we visited and actually in other places I've visited since more recently. Again, the one thing you'll look at when you look at the aerial map is, you know, I've just been to Bergen-Belsen and I, it wasn't obvious where the railway was there, but they've got a large

aerial plan in their hallway. And the guide was saying to me, well, actually there, that's where the railway is. It was quite some walk away, so a bit different to some of them. But again, it's always there. And on the map, you can see in the trees where it come down. And for me, it's just seeing the ground and going was most important. But the locations and how they fitted in with the narrative I'd read about was the thing that was stated with me, I think.

Stuart B (01:08:59.625)
Yeah, and I think just one more thing on that is that we were sort of in the kind of south-eastern sort of area of Poland and when we got down to Sobibor we were only a handful of kilometers away from the border with Ukraine. And I think then, I think...

I think I finally understood the sense of where Poland sits geographically in the world and that it's kind of perennially squeezed in between kind of East and West and has been kind of fought over and walked over, you know, so many times, you know, despite the, you know, the people, you know, fighting like fury to, you know, protect their homeland. And

And the vastness of the distance we travelled, there was always, you know, the camps were geographically kind of quite far apart. And you almost feel like wherever you went in Poland, there was always a sign of the Holocaust somewhere.

Waitman Beorn (01:10:07.245)
Well, I just have to say at the end of this, for me it was also an incredibly moving experience. And in some ways really the first time that I'd ever gone with friends to these places. I've gone with school groups and student groups and tour groups, but there is a different dynamic there. it was certainly a two-way street in terms of me taking things from...

your questions and your experiences and then also in certain places actually experiencing places for the first time as well. And so I really appreciate everyone's, I think as Mary mentioned in beginning, sort of vulnerability to sort of put yourself in that position over an extended period of time. That was really, really great. And,

as we always do on this podcast, I'm going to ask if everyone can sort of share one book or movie, because some of us want to talk about movies, that they found particularly impactful, memorable, et cetera. And as always, these are just sort of what you're feeling in the moment. It's like, who's your favorite band? I mean, this is something that can change whenever. But I'm just curious what...

what your sort of picks would be for that.

Stuart B (01:11:39.208)
I'm going to get this out of the way because I've obviously been frowned upon with the movie. So I'm going to go first. was kind of part of the... The reason I wanted to say it was because it was part of trying to have a little bit more of an understanding before we went on the trip. And one of the movies that Wakeman said you should go and watch is Son of Saul. And that...

Stuart B (01:12:11.57)
that's as close as you ever want to be to experiencing the Holocaust. And it's quite a, it's an extraordinary chaotic movie. then the, in some ways the narrative isn't always clear what, you know, where the story is going. But in some ways I think that's appropriate that

you know, it's a little bit chaotic, but it's incredibly visceral. And the thing that sits behind it, mean, visually it's very cleverly shot because it shows everything but doesn't show everything. It's very clever. But there is a constant soundtrack that sits behind it.

and the noise and the acoustics and the sound of a place, little bit like we were talking previously about the smell of a place which we can't experience, but the production team there, I felt, did an almost too good job. It is very uncomfortable viewing and you sort of have to walk away and kind of come back. And I think that's the reason why I want to mention it, because if anyone wants to try and

understand the sense of, or even 1 % of the sense of what that might have been like, that's the movie to watch. And interestingly, was re-informed, that kind of method or that way of filming was reinforced through the zone of interest. And you could almost watch that movie without watching it, you could almost just listen to it. And it finds a way of connecting with your senses in a...

Lesley (01:13:55.337)
Yeah.

Stuart B (01:14:02.062)
in a totally different way because not everyone is going to sit down and read a scholarly book on the Holocaust. But if someone wanted to try and learn something about it, either one of those two movies, I think, would be really good to watch.

Mary Brazier (01:14:20.444)
If Stuart's had two films, can I have two books? He started breaking the rules. So I, the book, my one book was going to be Dan Stone's recent The Holocaust and Unfinished History.

Waitman Beorn (01:14:23.393)
Yes. Yes.

Mary Brazier (01:14:38.096)
It's incredibly well read, digestible, but I was reading it, I commute into London on the train a few times a week and I was reading it on the train as part of my commute and there were some times where I just had to close the book and put it away and it was just, couldn't go there. There were some elements of it that were so visceral and so matter of fact. When he was describing how

some of the perpetrators were recording and writing letters to their wives. And there was one in particular, I just had to, and he was being so matter of fact about what was happening. just, can't, actually, I need to not think about that at the moment. And I thought I had quite a high tolerance level for being able to compartmentalize this topic. And then the other one, I suppose we can't think about the Holocaust without thinking about some of Gita Serene's books. So either her Albert Speer book or

God, my brain's gone with the other one. Into that darkness. Yeah, thank you, Leslie. Because she's an incredibly good writer, but her work on those two individuals, I think just shows you the people who were perpetrating these atrocities and the complexity and how they managed to do it. And I find Albert Speer in particular absolutely fascinating because growing up as a child being kind of

Lesley (01:15:40.483)
Into that darkness.

Mary Brazier (01:16:08.84)
groomed, if you like, into an obsession with the Second World War by watching the World at War, probably too young, and seeing the Holocaust episode as a very young child. I wasn't allowed to watch Tiswas and we weren't allowed to watch ITV in my house, but I could watch the World at War and I could watch the episode on Holocaust. So that was ingrained in my brain as a very young child. And then Albert Speer.

being interviewed in other episodes of the World at War as kind of the acceptable Nazi and I know Stuart's talked about this in his talks on the architecture of the Holocaust and he's a fascinating individual and what were you saying recently that Speer and Associates is still an architectural firm and yeah I just find the whole thing fascinating so Gita Siren is Albert Speer, his battle with the truth I think is the subtitle of that one isn't it.

But yeah, those would be my two.

Lesley (01:17:09.332)
I think I'd have to agree with you about Keeta's book. I forgot about that one, Mary. I read that after we came back from the camp, so it was even more poignant to read about the places and hear Stangle saying why he did the things he did or he didn't know anything about it. I tended to shy away from memoirs originally, but recently after going to Auschwitz a few times, I've actually picked a few up. My actual book, but I would like to mention a different genre of books after.

My book is by Shlomo Vinicius and it's called Inside the Gas Chambers, Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz. It's an excellent book. He was a Greek Jew from Saloniki. He came to Auschwitz towards the end of the war in 44 and he was in the Sonderkommando, which was the people that worked in the gas chambers and they didn't have usually very long lifespan there because they saw too much and they were replaced quite quickly. But because he was there towards the end of the war, he also was

evacuated, but he managed, he was there when it was the Sonderkommando revolt in October 44, but he managed to sort of get out trouble with that because it wasn't successful, unfortunately. And then there were death marches from the camp. He managed to hide amongst the other prisoners because the SS were coming around and asking if anyone was in the Sonderkommando because of what they'd seen, they were instantly shot. But because he managed to hide amongst the other prisoners, he actually went on the death marches to Mauthausen and Ebbensy and he did actually survive the war and he managed to tell his story.

So I think that book for me actually reads in a memoir, I found very powerful. I don't know why I hadn't read them before. I just always read the facts and the historical. Perhaps I didn't want to expose myself to too much of the truth. But the other books that I am fascinated in now, and I've picked up quite a few at the camps I've been to, are the artwork that a lot of the prisoners have done since they've survived. This one, I'm going to show you the picture because it's quite graphic. It's by David O'Leary. He was a prisoner in Auschwitz.

And when I went to Budapest recently, I went to the art museum at the of the hill just to cool down out the heat. When I went inside, they actually had a Holocaust exhibition and it was survivors, Hungarian survivors from Auschwitz and the Holocaust. And they had painted scenes from their time in camps. And I think the art, I it's obviously very dark, but I find it quite interesting. There's a lot of books that have been published by them. And that for me is something that I find fascinating. So that's my...

Waitman Beorn (01:19:35.723)
Well, thank you guys so much for taking the time and coming on. For all the listeners, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. see, know, real people can go visit these places as well and really get something out of it. As always, if you have a minute, you know, please give us a like and subscribe and a comment about how you're finding the series. These things are super helpful for us. And again, Stuart, Mary.

Leslie, thank you guys so much for trusting me with the trip that we went on together, but also for coming on this podcast and sharing your thoughts.

Lesley (01:20:16.258)
Thank you.

Stuart B (01:20:17.138)
Thank you very much.

Mary Brazier (01:20:17.556)
Thanks, Raymond.