The Ackerman Center Podcast

We are all looking for ways to make sense of the news about the war in Ukraine. In this episode, Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Emily-Rose Baker have a conversation with Dr. Yuliya Komska—a cultural historian and native Ukrainian who currently teaches at Dartmouth. Dr. Komska shared with us about the need to protect and rescue cultural heritage as Russian bombs threaten major sites and people flee the co...

The fictional Netflix film "Munich the Edge of War" depicts an attempted plot to remove Hitler. The film plays with the question of what if an attempt like this had been successful. In this episode, Angie Simmons and Dr. Emily-Rose Baker discuss the film and how it deals with representing WWII and the Holocaust. 

The attack on the Soviet Union launched on June 22nd, 1941 marked a turning point in the war and also in the racial politics of the Third Reich. Operation Barbarossa ultimately depleted the German army and lasted much longer than Hitler had anticipated. In the fall of 1941, Hitler conceived of The Holocaust and then began to implement it. The series, "A Year in the Third Reich," explores significa...

In this episode of the series "A Year in the Third Reich," Dr. Nils Roemer and Angie Simmons (Belofsky Fellow) take a look at the Tripartite Pact, signed by Japan, Germany, and Italy on Sept. 27, 1940, took aim at the United States and had implications for how the war would progress. Along with embargos, this pact increased tensions between the United States and Japan in the time leading up to the...

Returning to our series "A Year in the Third Reich," Dr. Nils Roemer and Angie Simmons (Belofsky Fellow) discuss the establishment of the ghettos in Poland and the introduction of armbands for the Jewish population. They consider a newspaper article from Paris that was published in the New York Times. In asking the question, "What is the defining event of 1939?" we look back with historical hindsi...

Join Dr. Nils Roemer as he catches up with Dr. Pedro Gonzalez Corona about his new position with the Ackerman Center and what he's looking forward to teaching in the spring semester.

Meet Dr. Emily-Rose Baker the new visiting assistant professor. In this episode, she and Dr. Nils Roemer talk about her research on the Holocaust by bullets and central and eastern European film studies. 

In the season finale of "A Year in the Third Reich," professors Dr. Sarah Valente and Dr. Nils Roemer discuss the quickly changing landscape in 1938. During that year, the Nazis ramped up their effort to enforce removal of Jews from German and Austrian society and mobilized to remove Jews from these countries through a so-called emigration program led by Adolf Eichmann in Vienna. This episode is p...

In today's episode, professors Dr. Sarah Valente and Dr. Nils Roemer discuss the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, beginning the Pacific War, and the complex role of Nazi John Rabe in the Nanking Safety Zone. They also discuss the involvement of the Third Reich in the Spanish Civil War and new forms of increasing violence abroad, as well as in Nazi Germany, with the opening of the Buchenwald con...

In today's episode, professors Dr. Sarah Valente and Dr. Nils Roemer discuss the Olympics in Berlin of 1936, which set the Third Reich in the world's center stage.  This episode is part of a new series, "A Year in the Third Reich," where we explore significant events that took place throughout Hitler's Third Reich. In each episode, we refer to specific primary sources such as newspaper articl...

In today's episode, professors Dr. Sarah Valente and Dr. Nils Roemer discuss the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. This episode is part of a new series, "A Year in the Third Reich," where we explore significant events that took place throughout Hitler's Third Reich. In each episode, we refer to specific primary sources such as newspaper articles, photographs, maps, etc. To access and download the Primary So...

In today's episode, professors Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Sarah Valente discuss Hitler's meeting with Mussolini in Venice in 1934. This episode is part of a new series, "A Year in the Third Reich," where we explore significant events that took place throughout Hitler's Third Reich. In each episode, we refer to specific primary sources such as newspaper articles, photographs, maps, etc. To access and...

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. In today's episode, professors Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Sarah Valente discuss the Reichstag Fire and the Enabling Act of 1933.  This episode is part of a new series, "A Year in the Third Reich," where we explore significant events that took place throughout Hitler's Third Reich. In each episode, we refer to specific primary source...

Tune in next Sunday, January 31 at 10am for the first episode of our new podcast season.

In the first season finale, Dr. Sarah Valente and Dr. Nils Roemer invite Jane Saginaw, an outstanding PhD student in the Humanities program at UT Dallas, to read a few poems from her collection, "A Shift in Wind: Ten Poems of Women and the Holocaust," which she wrote as a creative research paper for Dr. Valente's graduate history course on Women and the Holocaust. Listen as Jane shares her deeply-...

In this episode, Dr. Roemer and Dr. Valente discuss how the current pandemic changes the ways in which we engage with the past, history and Holocaust memory. #kristallnacht #remembrance #future

Dr. Sarah Valente and Dr. Nils Roemer reflect on the Ackerman Center's annual Einspruch Lecture Series, which took place on October 25 and featured Ben Ferencz. As the last living prosecutor for the US Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the twelve military trials held by US authorities at Nuremberg, Germany, at 100 years old, Ben Ferencz shares words of wisdom with all of us. Listen to this...

In this episode of the Ackerman Center Podcast, Dr. Sarah Valente interviewed Dr. Nils Roemer about the op-ed published in the Jewish Forward this week. Dr. Roemer together with other four German-born directors of Holocaust and genocide centers at American universities wrote the article "It is not too late for American Democracy — yet." You can also read the article at https://forward.com/scribe/4...

In Episode 21: L’dor V’dor From Generation to Generation, Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Sarah Valente talk about the virtual celebration that took place last month to honor Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth on the eve of her retirement from UT Dallas.  They also remember the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and discuss a 2004 speech she gave at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum about antisemitism and how the...

In this episode, Dr. Valente and Dr. Roemer discuss the beginning of new fall semester and navigating academic life under these unscripted times of the current pandemic. They also discuss the film When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which was featured at the 2020 Jewish Film Festival of Dallas, a first time virtual film fest.

We are excited to present the third and last episode of "Portraits of World War II." This special three-part series features beloved professors, brilliant scholars, and longtime UTD legends, whose childhoods and lives were marked by World War II. Today's special guest is Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, Professor of Literature and History, the Leah and Paul Lewis Chair of Holocaust Studies, and the founder...

We are excited to present the second episode of "Portraits of World War II." This special three-part series features beloved professors, brilliant scholars, and longtime UTD legends, whose childhoods and lives were marked by World War II. Today's special guest is Prof. Frederick Turner, Founders Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, poet, and renowned translator.  #poetry #literature...

We are excited to present the first episode of a special three-part series, "Portraits of World War II," which features longtime legends of the University of Texas at Dallas, beloved professors in the School of Arts & Humanities, and brilliant scholars, whose childhoods and lives were marked by World War II. Today's special guest is Dr. Rainer Schulte, endowed professor of arts & humanitie...

The Ackerman Center Podcast presents a special new series "Portraits of World War II".  This new three-part series features beloved professors, brilliant scholars, and longtime UTD legends Dr. Rainer Schulte, Dr. Fred Turner, and Dr. Zsuzsi Ozsváth as they address WWII's impact in their childhoods and lives.  Tune in this Sunday, August 2 at 10am for the first episode of this special thr...

Listen to our insightful conversation with Dr. Björn Krondorfer, director of the Martin-Springer Institute and Endowed Professor of Comparative Religious Studies at Northern Arizona University. We touch on topics of reconciliation, mutual understanding, and necessary new approaches to Holocaust, Human Rights, and Genocide Studies education. Dr. Krondorfer provides what Dr. Roemer calls, "a measure...