373: The Machinery of Mass Murder


SS guards and women support staff on an outing, taking a break from their duties at Auschwitz.

The Nazis were experienced at mass murder by 1942, having already killed millions of disabled people, Soviet POWs and Jewish people in Eastern Europe.

The year 1942 and Operation Reinhard would see a system of rapid and efficient murder of large numbers of people, the like of which had never been seen before. They kept the operation secret, and the very impossibility of imagining such a horror kept its victims ignorant of the fate that awaited them.

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Transcript.


Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, “Pathétique.”
Composed in 1799 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Performed by Paul Pittman. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing War Theme


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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