How the Holocaust had its roots in eastern European pogroms - a podcast by RNZ

The eyes of the world may be on Ukraine right now, but Dr Jeffrey Veidlinger has focused on a largely forgotten period of history that once captured international attention there too. At the end of the first world war a wave of anti-semitic violence rocked the eastern European region as the Russian empire fell apart. It's thought over 100,000 Jews died in hundreds of localised attacks and forced hundreds of thousands more to flee. The violence itself was carried out by those of varying political, military and class persuasions: the Jew seemed to be the one enemy they could all agree on. Despite alarm raised at the time, the deadly pogroms have come to be overshadowed by the horrors of the Holocaust. Dr Veidlinger argues in his new book, In the Midst of Civilised Europe, that the Holocaust's roots can be found in these pogroms.

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