The True Story of the Jewish Pianist and the Nazi Officer Who Saved Him | Władysław Szpilman

Jan 16, 2026 | Władysław Szpilman was born in 1911 in Sosnowiec and trained as a pianist in interwar Warsaw, a capital city marked by a vibrant cultural life and the presence of a large Jewish community integrated into urban society. After completing his musical studies in Poland and Germany, he established his career as a performer and composer at Polish Radio, where he achieved national acclaim. On September 23, 1939, while Warsaw was being bombed, he performed a Chopin piece live; the broadcast was interrupted when the building was destroyed during the siege that followed the German invasion of Poland.

With the establishment of the General Government, administered by German authorities such as Hans Frank under the directives of the Reich, the city was subjected to a system of total control. The Jewish population was progressively isolated, confined, and deprived of resources. In 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto was established, where overcrowding, food shortages, and deportations defined daily life. Szpilman lost his family during the major operations of 1942, when most of the ghetto's inhabitants were deported to Treblinka. From then on, his survival depended on forced labor, hiding, and the help of Polish civilians on the so-called "Aryan side."

In 1944, after the Warsaw Uprising and the systematic evacuation of the city, Szpilman remained hidden among the ruins. It was there that he met Wehrmacht Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, who decided not to betray him and provided him with food and shelter during the winter. The entry of Soviet troops in January 1945 brought an end to the German occupation. In the postwar period, Szpilman resumed his musical work in Warsaw, left a written record of the city's destruction, and continued his career as a composer and cultural organizer until the end of the 20th century.

Enemies of the State: The Nazi Persecution of LGBTQ+ People

29 Oct 2024 | In commemoration of LGBTQ+ History Month, Dr. Jake Newsome will share the experiences of this marginalized group, untangling the complex motivations that convinced Nazi leaders that combating homosexuality was vital to the success of the Third Reich.

Dr. Jake Newsome is an award-winning scholar of German and American LGBTQ+ history whose research and resources educate global audiences. He is the Founder and Director of the Pink Triangle Legacies Project, a grassroots initiative that honors the memory of the Nazi’s queer victims and carries on their legacy by fighting homophobia and transphobia today through education, empowerment, and advocacy.

Thank you to our Community Partners: Pink Triangle Legacies Project, Affirmations LGBTQ+ Community Center, and Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit Pride.

Out of the Closet | LGBTQ+ During WWII | USC Shoah Foundation

22 Jun 2022 | Holocaust survivors and rescuers discuss being LGBTQ+ during World War II - a haunting time in history.

This USC Shoah Foundation testimony compilation features Susan Dregely (Jewish survivor), Bertram Schaffner (American soldier), Gad Beck (Jewish survivor), and Marion Pritchard (Dutch rescuer).


Please don’t be confused. This is not Pride Month. That’s in June. But these videos are showing up on my YouTube homepage, and they are very interesting, so I am sharing them with you. — µark

The Nazi Persecution of Gay People | Reupload

3 Jun 2020 | Before the Nazis came to power, Berlin was home to a vibrant gay community. Within weeks of their rise in March 1933, the Nazis drove this population underground and waged a violent campaign against homosexuality. Over the next 12 years, more than 100,000 men were arrested for violating Germany's law against "unnatural indecency among men.” During this time, proof was often not required to convict an individual. Some were sent to concentration camps and subjected to hard labor, cruelty, and even medical experiments aimed at “curing” them.

The Auctioneers: How Jewish Property Was Sold Off under Nazism | Full Documentary

31 May 2025 | With the pogroms in 1938/39, the systematic antisemitism of the Nazis broke through. This led to incomparable violence and despotism towards Jewish citizens. The events, that reached their first peak in the Reichspogromnacht but continued for years afterwards, also led to a massive wave of expropriation. The vast monetary and material values taken from the Jews are beyond imagination. But they’ve been documented meticulously in the books of a then booming industry: the auctioneers.

They were the exploiters of Jewish property, from industrial enterprises to silver spoons: tax inspectors and bailiffs, pawnbrokers, and auctioneers. Especially the latter are among the major profiteers of the Holocaust. Their files, which in many cities only now have been made accessible, paint a new and more detailed picture of the persecution of Jews in Germany.

The accuracy, with which events have been documented, allows telling this story with the means of historical data journalism for the first time ever, putting private stories in perspective with the main developments in Nazi-Germany

“The Auctioneers” is a hunt for relics of the past that leads from private property to everyday life between 1938 and 1944, to those who’ve profited most from the property transfers, and finally to some sort of economic balance of the Holocaust.

Documentary: The Auctioneers: Profiting From the Holocaust (2018)
Directed by Jan N.Lorenzen
Production: Hoferichter & Jacobs, ARD, MDR


The currency exchange for the Reichsmark against the US dollar in the Thirties was as follows:

Around 1930 – 1931, there were approximately 4.2 Reichsmarks to the US dollar. (With one or two slight variations.)

From the mid to late Thirties, the Nazi regime implemented currency controls, so the exchange rate moved closer to 2.5 Reichsmarks to the US dollar. – Mark

Blood Money : Financial Secrets of the Third Reich - Episode 1 : How to Finance a War ? | PURE WW2

When Hitler seized power in 1933, war was already his endgame. Violence lay at the heart of Nazi ideology: the strong must dominate, the weak must fall. But there was a problem—Germany had no modern army, no weapons, and an economy worn down by years of crisis. Far from the myth of a thriving Reich, the country was a middling power, no stronger than a present-day regional state. The Nazi regime then launched one of the most audacious financial operations of the 20th century. Through secret debt schemes, industrial coercion and massive state manipulation, they rebuilt the economy by pouring resources into weapons production.

In 1939, Hitler finally plunged Europe into war — a war financed entirely on credit, using looted assets and anticipated spoils as collateral. A conflict born from a financial illusion that could only survive through expansion.

Thom Hartmann: History Warned Us: Why These 12 Warnings Could Mean It’s Too Late? w/ Laurence Rees

Dec 1, 2025 | Historians are scared - These 12 Warnings show how the Third Reich was built, and under Trump - every single one of them is happening again.

Laurence Reez, author of The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History - joins Thom Hartmann for a shocking interview detailing how Hitler took over Germany.

The Nazi mindset is back — Historians are scared - and we’re ignoring the exact same clues

The SS - Blood and Soil - The Occult History of the Third Reich

Nov 21, 2025 | From the occult origins of the Nazi Party to the death of Hitler in the flaming ruins of Berlin, the doctrine of National Socialism created a world of strange rituals and beliefs. Using rare archive footage The Occult History of the Third Reich explores the phenomenon that mesmerised Germany. This fascinating programme tells the strange story of the transformation of Hitler's elite bodyguard into a military-religious order steeped in the doctrines of the occult. It was to be a racially select order intended to fulfil all the extraordinary and terrifying policies of National Socialism.

Journey to Nazi Berlin / Vladimir Raevskiy

Nov 3, 2025 | A journey to a country under a totalitarian regime is surprisingly easy these days - too many of them are open and even welcoming to tourists. But what would you actually see, - and more importantly, notice, - on such a trip? Most travellers come back with ordinary impressions: food, sightseeing, parks, and museums.

But distance lends perspective.

That’s why I decided to travel to Nazi Berlin in 1936, to explore what impressions and observations I might have brought back from that quite remarkable place.

The Aftermath of Kristallnacht: The Nazi Auctioneers Who Profited from the Holocaust

Nov 2, 2025 | Historical data journalism brings to light the true story of Kristallnacht and thereafter. The systematic antisemitism of the Nazis peaked with the pogroms of 1938/39, the outcome of which was incomparable violence and despotism towards Jewish citizens. The events that culminated into the Kristallnacht also led to a massive wave of expropriation. The mind cannot begin to process the vast amount of monetary and material goods taken from the Jews on Kristallnacht and years to follow. But the stolen valuables were meticulously documented by a group known as the auctioneers. Their files place private stories in perspective with the major developments of Nazi-Germany, showing us those who’ve profited most from the property transfers.Tax inspectors and bailiffs, pawnbrokers and auctioneers were the exploiters of Jewish property, from industrial enterprises to silver spoons. Especially the auctioneers are among the major profiteers of the Holocaust. Their files, which in many cities were only recently made accessible, paint a new and more detailed picture of the persecution of Jews in Germany.

Book Burnings: How the Nazis First Burned Books and Then People

May 7, 2023 | Book burnings - in the past and the present - stand as one of the most powerful symbols of intolerance and censorship. On May 10, 1933, only a few months after Hitler's rise to power, tens of thousands of books were burned in more than twenty German cities. Most books were works by Jewish authors. But works by political dissidents were also blacklisted. Numerous writers were forced to go into exile, while many of those who stayed in Germany were imprisoned or murdered. The Nazis replaced the Weimar Republic’s once vibrant culture with Nazi propaganda and a carefully tailored concept of what they wanted “German culture” to be.

In this episode of "Arts Unveiled", DW History Reporter Susanne Spröer sets forth to investigate why the idea to burn books took hold of universities across Germany in 1933. What role did the symbolism of fire play? Which authors were blacklisted? What happened to them afterwards? And what do young people today think about these acts of cultural destruction?

The Path to Nazi Genocide | 2025 | Holocaust Education

Oct 20, 2025 | This 38-minute film introduces the history of the Holocaust. It begins by looking back at the major changes from 1918 to 1933 that created the political climate for the birth and rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. It explores the basis for the party’s support among ordinary Germans and the military, government, and business establishment before and after Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933.

After 1933, Nazi leaders used violence and intimidation, propaganda, laws and decrees, and parliamentary maneuvers to quickly destroy the remains of democratic rule. Having established a dictatorship, leaders began pursuing ideological goals. These included the purification and strengthening of the “superior” German “race” and the return of Germany to great power status through economic revival and the build-up of the military.

Jews, who were viewed in Nazi ideology as a separate and dangerous “race,” went from being German citizens with full equal rights to outcasts. They were pressured to immigrate and excluded from the racially based “people’s community” that gave many Germans, especially youth, a sense of belonging. Other excluded groups included Roma, persons with disabilities, gay men, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and political opponents.

During World War II, which began in 1939, German military conquests and alliances endangered Jews living in countries across German-dominated Europe. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in summer 1941, envisioned by Nazi leaders and the German military as a “war of annihilation,” was a key turning point on the path to the genocide of Europe’s Jews. The murder of 6 million Jewish men, women, and children required the active participation or acquiescence of countless Germans and Europeans from all walks of life.

Young Republicans Group Chat Reveals the Future of the Republican Party

Oct 15, 2025 | After the release of messages found within a Young Republicans group chat, it's clear the next generation of Republicans are trying to follow in the footsteps of Trump. Steve Schmidt reacts to the Politico article and explains why their ideology is so dangerous.

How Switzerland Helped Finance Hitler’s War – Historical Documentary

October 9, 2025 | Suisse : La Banque des Nazis

Gestapo - Hitler's Secret Police

Oct 1, 2023 | Hermann Goering’s Secret State Police were ordered to arrest, and torture supposed enemies of the Reich to get confessions from them. All the powers of the German judiciary were taken into its hands and the courts were rendered superfluous.

This is a compelling account of one of the true horror stories of the century. | Licenced through Mercury Studios

This Was the Life of Jews Under the Nazi Regime

September 5, 2025

Hitler's Unlikely Soldiers: The Jews Who Had to Fight for the Third Reich

Aug 16, 2025 | During the rise of Nazi Germany, many people with even a trace of Jewish ancestry were categorized as "Mischlinge," or "half-breeds," by the Nuremberg Laws. Faced with persecution, some of these individuals made the complex decision to fight for the German military. For many, this was a desperate attempt to prove their loyalty and protect their families from the Nazi regime's growing threat. In this episode of Nazi Collaborators, historians investigate the dark reality of these men who served a nation that sought their destruction, detailing their stories of bravery, deception, and collaboration in an impossible situation. Ultimately, their survival became a small, personal victory against the very system they were forced to fight for.

1933-1935 The Nazification - Chronicle of the Third Reich UNCENSORED

Apr 11, 2025 | The Nazis seized power when Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor on 30 January 1933. What began with great jubilation ended after a world war in which 50 million people were killed. This series takes a unique journey through the bleakest chapter of German history. It traces the story of the Third Reich, painting a picture of Nazi dictatorship behind the propaganda by utilising what in some cases is previously unpublished footage.

After Hitler: The Path to Democracy

Apr 20, 2025 | With the invasion of neighboring Poland by the German armed forces in the fall of 1939, Germany ignited the Second World War. Six years of murder, destruction, expulsion and hunger shaped the fate of people in many parts of the world.

In May 1945, the guns fell silent in Europe. Germany was defeated. An end and a beginning at the same time. But how did the political, social and economic reconstruction take shape in post-war Germany? How did a dictatorship become a democracy?

We look at the first years after the end of the war – and the long road towards a new political order.

Trump’s Dark Blueprint for Presidency Blown Wide Open

Jul 19, 2025 | Is Trumpism really fascism? And which radical regime came first? To craft legal discrimination, the Third Reich studied the United States - and Jim Crow policies. Anthony Davis breaks down Donald Trump’s history of eugenicist beliefs and how it shapes his policies today.

MEIDAS TOUCH can be supported here.