The past is always present. Mandy Patinkin’s podcast tells us of the little-known heroes of the Shoah. Courtesy of Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin.History podcasts can be very difficult for me for the simplest reason: my mind drifts elsewhere. It’s not that I’m not interested in history. It’s that I can’t see the dozens and dozens of facts being said aloud in an episode. For me, at least, I need visuals. I need archival footage. Certain podcasts I can listen to and it doesn’t matter if I miss a vital moment. If it’s just two friends gabbing and laughing, I can work on something while I listen. History podcasts, on the other hand, require me to go into a dark room, lock myself in, and LISTEN. Go nowhere. Just listen to those voices coming through my headphones and transport myself to the period they’re recounting.
More importantly, what doesn’t really help is when a history podcast only features ONE narrator the entire time. I need more interviews. Music. Sound effects. Actual audio footage from way back in the day. You know what I’m saying? It needs to be…just a little more engaging. The best way to talk about history is to make it seem like we are actually there, like an anonymous person on the street cognizant of the latest news and affairs in town. EXILE, a weekly podcast hosted by the outstanding, award-winning, positively-impossible-to-hate Mandy Patinkin, does just that. There have only been six episodes so far, and not one of them has been tedious. Not one of them has been lazy or felt like a long, languorous lecture by a historian. With its carefully crafted editing, EXILE carries you straight to the past from wherever you are. It never meanders. It never forces you to listen and learn. It uses its facts and multitude of different talking points to create one fascinating series about the little-known heroes and survivors of the Shoah.
Furthermore, EXILE is a show that reminds us how crucial and critical history is; in this case, Holocaust history. Of course, I have been waiting to publish this blog post on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which, this year, just so happens to be on the same day new posts are published. No matter what Shoah day of remembrance it is – Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah, etc. – EXILE should be listened to any time the same way Holocaust cinema should be viewed any time of the year. Shoah survival stories will forever perpetuate in time. 50 years from now, filmmakers and historians will STILL be discovering new stories from this unfathomable tragedy. For the people who get “Holocaust fatigue” from seeing so much of it onscreen and in digital platforms like EXILE, I hate to break it to you, but they’re never going away. As humans, it is our duty to preserve these memories, and together we should talk about them.
Anyway. That’s my TED Talk for the day! Just kidding. The Holocaust, if you can probably tell by now, is a very touchy subject for me. I get mad. I get infuriated when I think about it. EXILE may upset you, obviously, but it isn’t a “downer” podcast. The episodes spark hope in humanity through their meticulous, extensive dive past the history books and into the lives of little-known survivors of the Shoah. We’ve all heard of Anne Frank and Oskar Schindler, but what about the others? What about the people whose names have been silenced or forgotten in Holocaust education? EXILE explores the more “obscure” heroes of the Shoah, random individuals whose stories have never been told. When we hear about their lives and achievements, we are reminded that they were just like us, innocents trying to survive amidst a murderous regime. They were…. people. Living, breathing people.
The first time I visited Yad Vashem in 2019, I walked around the Hall of Names. It was like walking through a cemetery. As I gazed at every name and picture, I felt more than incredulous. The scope of it all hit me like a ton of bricks. Who was that person? Who were they before World War II? Did they warn others of Hitler’s impending atrocities? Were they auspicious in their careers? Did they have families too? I wanted to learn about every face in that hall. We wish there was a more palpable way to do this. Holocaust museums may have a database where you can search a name and learn a bit about that person’s life, but what about their full bios? EXILE may not have the ability to delve into the millions upon millions of casualties and survivors of the Shoah, but it does its job. It uses its platform for the most important reason of all: to never forget.
It’s no surprise why Mandy Patinkin decided to host this show, and it’s not just because he has a fantastic podcast voice. A few years ago, he appeared in an episode of Finding Your Roots where he discovered that his relatives had perished in the Holocaust. Watching his reaction is like a punch in the chest. He immediately breaks down in tears. Scarlett Johansson shared a similar experience on the show where she, too, learned of family members who were killed. The instinctual reaction, I can imagine, is to cry, to feel like your whole chest has been ripped open. Even though we never knew our ancestors, to learn that they were murdered in one of the worst tragedies in humankind is… yeah. It’s a LOT to take in. Patinkin’s relatives would be so proud of what he accomplishes in EXILE, and I so applaud this actor for his efforts in bringing these stories to life.
I’m also now a superfan of the Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin, the producer of EXILE and a research library centered around the history of German-speaking Jews. Founded in 1955 by German-Jewish émigré intellectuals like Max Grunewald, Hanna Arendt, and more, its primary focus is to preserve the cultural heritage of the German-speaking Jewry that Hitler tried to annihilate. It is even named after Rabbi Leo Baeck, who was the last leader of Germany’s Jewish Community before it was destroyed during Kristallnacht. He survived the war and was later appointed as the first President of the Leo Baeck Institute. The library of endless stories that Leo and the founders of the institute have preserved all these years later is nothing short of astounding. Here are just a few of the million people that EXILE explores:
- Florence Mendheim
As American Nazism grew in the United States preceding the Final Solution, Florence, a Jewish librarian, went undercover and attended pro-Nazi rallies to warn Americans of Hitler’s growing reign of terror. - Kurt Hirschfeld
A renowned dramaturg, Kurt fled to neutral Zurich, Switzerland during the war where he formed a special theater collective dedicated to spreading the truth about Hitler’s malicious intentions through performance art. - William Nussbaum
The Nazis were obsessed with boxing Jews into a separate “race” from society. William, a physician, decided to tackle that egregious belief by founding an anthropological organization about the Jewish race that debunked all Nazi ideology.
And those are only a few names. AND EXILES is coming back for another season! I understand if
you may not be in the mood for a “heavy” podcast, but at this point in the world, in a society plagued by rising cases of antisemitism and hate, it’s necessary to challenge yourself to a podcast like this. We say, “never again,” but it’s been happening for so long now. EXILE teaches us that there’s still work to be done, and WE have the power to stop injustice. If these people did it way back then, why can’t we?
To learn more about the Leo Baeck Institute, visit LBI.org.
EXILE is available to listen to on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.